Full text of "In Her Majesty's keeping : the story of a hidden life"

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L I B R.AFLY 

OF THE 

UNIVERSITY 

or ILLINOIS 

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IN HER MAJESTY'S KEEPING 



^he St0t2 oi n Wlx^Un Sife. 



BY 



THE HON. LEWIS WINGFIELD^ 

AUTHOR OF 
*LADY GRIZEL' 'MY LORDS OF STROGUE,' ETC. 



Recompense Injury with Justice, and Kindness with Kindness/^ 



Confucius. 



IN THREE VOLUMES. 
VOL. IIL 




LONDON : 

RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 

^ttbltshas in dDritnars to W^r: ^ajtstij the ^unn. 

1880. 

[A/I Rights Resen'fd.'] 



Digitized by the Internet Arcinive 

in 2010 with funding from 

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 



http://www.archive.org/details/inhermajestyskee03wing 



V.3 



CONTENTS OF VOL. III. 



PART II.— Continued. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

II. MR. SCARRAWEG'S SECOND GROWL - - 1 

III. MR. SCARRAWEG'S THIRD GROWL - - 43 

PAET III. 

THE AVENGER SPEAKS. 

1. LIBERTY ------- 75 

IL RETIREMENT - - - - - - 111 

an. BROODING - - - - - - - 142 

IV. IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES - - - - 176 

V. A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS - - - 215 

WL SHAKING IT OFF - - - - - 272 

PART IV. 

THE COMFORTER SPEAKS. 

L A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG - - - - 291 

IL THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION - - - 319 

L' ENVOI ------- 342 




IN HER MAJESTY'S KEEPING. 



P j\^ JJ, T II. — continued. 



CHAPTER II. 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 



'■M!-'\v^-'-/r ■•: 



ESSMATES, I have a hazy idea 
that I must have lost my temper, 
which is a pity, for you'll think 
that I'm a terrible bear, and that I'm not fit 
to manage a thousand or so of the crawling, 
grovelling curs, for whom your tender pity is 
aroused. But I'm glad to see Ebenezer has 
spoken up for me on the whole, though he 
does say I'm grump}^ Poor lad I he's not 
one of the curs, that's a mercy. 

VOL. III. 44 



2 MR. SCARRAWECS SECOND GROWL. 

You must excuse my being cross, but this 
age of ours is by a vast deal too sentimental. 
You should go to sea and be knocked about 
in the fresh air ; for you are all nerves. 
Whether it's railways or strong tea, it is for 
doctors to determine. In my seafaring days 
(then we saw nothing nearer to a cur than a 
dogfish), my captain, when he was ashore, 
used to have great, handsome, mahogany 
chairs in his parlour, shiny with elbow-grease, 
with nice stuffed seats of black horsehair, that 
did you good when you sat down on 'em to 
drink his health. Now it's all the go to have 
little, curly, spidery things, that I respect 
myself too much to so much as try to sit 
upon ; for I'm a tub-built barque, and when 
I run aground it's a matter of no little haul- 
ing to get me off again. It's just the same 
with everything else. Thin, spidery, over- 
elegant. Your supersensitive imaginations 
run away with you, and you cry out and want 
things softened doAvn that are too soft 
already. If the public were allowed to visit 
the prisoners, say two days a week (I can't 
see why they should not), they'd see for them- 
selves how things stand, and that they're 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 3 

excitinof themselves without a cause. In the 
old days of the hulks convicts led awful hves, 
no doubt. Ill-fed, ill-clothed, the feeble sub- 
jected to the tyranny of the strong, the good 
and bad chained together in groups ; there is 
no doubt that it was a Pandemonium. If you 
could only listen, as I do every weary day, to 
the complaints men make who ask to see the 
governor ! Either they are trivial or they 
are saucy. It is not possible to find anything 
serious to complain of. The warders know 
this, and, being ignorant men, are frightened 
when the public make an outcry, for they 
can't make out what it's all about ; so they grow 
demoralised and fear to do their duty. Their 
lives are tormented by the convicts within ; 
their minds are disturbed by the mis-state- 
ments which ex-convicts send to the news- 
papers. In the vicinity of Millbank and 
Pentonville, if they go outside in uniform to 
enjoy a glass of ale, they are gibed at by 
street- arabs, who call them ' slave-drivers.' 
And why % Simply because all is mystery 
within. It's like the Bluebeard chamber 
that I saw once in a pantomime. Awful 
without, but when the door opened there were 

44—2 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 



great masks grinning at you. I don't mean 
to say that street-arabs ought to be allowed 
to go inside (except on business), but if 
it was known that respectable parties might 
visit the prisons, the warders would take no 
heed of the street-arabs, because they would 
not feel in a false position, and the ex-convicts 
would be more careful what they wrote, for 
their falsehoods would be shown up at once. 
As it is, I'm sorry for the poor fellows under 
me. They feel poorly as I do, and, like me, 
have no joy in their profession. I've read 
somewhere, in a first-rate novel that's in our 
prison-library — I think it was called ' Lady 
Grizel' — about Bambridge and the Fleet in 
the days of George the Third. Well, that 
was a chamber of horrors and no mistake. 
Bambridge used to torture the poor things 
and sell them to the crimping parties, and 
kill some outrioiit. He had bouo-ht a 
monopoly of the place and did what he liked, 
and no one bothered their heads about it. 
Now we're undergoing the reaction for all 
that. It's a sentimental, unreasoning folly 
that makes me wild. Are these men 
criminals or not ? Is the system intended to 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 5 

be deterrent, or to offer a premium for crime % 
I vow (you're all so mawkish) that I'd like 
to set up the rack again and torment these 
plausible complaining villains till their joints 
cracked. I'd make 'em howl, I warrant, and 
they'd have something to complain of De- 
pend upon it, the more unworthy they are the 
more they'll yelp. It's the same as with the 
tram]3s on country roads, who make the green 
lanes dangerous for ladies. They won't do 
any work, not they ! But they'll howl and 
make complaints as much as you please. It's 
the steady, sensible, labouruig men who dig 
the fields or do what work they can get, and 
keep out of strikes and arguments, and hold 
their tongues. In the same way it's the 
better class who do their labour in jDrison, and 
make no noise (I won't say that they're con- 
trite or determined to be good later). But 
I'm getting hot again, so must give the tiller 
a touch and try another tack. 

I see one of the complainants says (a fine 
complaint 1) that warders as a rule are brutal 
in their manners. Well, Mr. Tilgoe's 
manners were beyond reproach, perhaps, but 
his heart wasn't. Warders are obliged to 



6 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

speak sternly to their gangs ; that's recognised ; 
or they would not be obeyed. The majority 
of the unruly prison-class is made up of the 
refuse of the towns. Men who, becrinninof as 
gutter-snipes, have received more kicks than 
halfpence since they Avere in arms, and are 
well-broken to the former. If you spoke 
nicely to them they w^ould not know what 
you meant, and would put their tongues out. 
Even their dear mothers, when they were 
washing their baby-faces — which they didn't 
often do — kept up an accompaniment of slaps, 
to use them to the w^ays of a hard world ; 
while as to their fathers — those w^ho ever 
knew any — they were always handy with 
blows when the urchins lins^ered on return- 
ing from the pawnshop. A man like Tilgoe 
would object to being spoken gruffly to, I 
have no doubt, and so might Ebenezer ; but 
do you suppose Spevins would wince, or 
Soda ? A very likely thing, indeed. And 
this brings me in my rambling way to the 
real grievance — a hole in our armour — a 
grievance which affects the silent, suffering 
ones — not men like Tilgoe, who ought not to 
be considered at all : I mean the classinsf of 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 7 

prisoners in different lots, so as to divide the 
sheep from the goats. That this really is a 
grievance I admit ; but it is a very difficult 
one to remedy, because very few mortals are 
all black or all white, and complications arise 
which are puzzling. One set, as matters are 
arranged at present, are supposed to con- 
taminate another. Very well, we'll agree 
that that is so ; but who is the contaminator ? 
not always the Bill Sykes, who's never known 
anything but crime. Bill Sykes can't pos- 
sibly contaminate the Reverend Tilgoe, for in- 
stance, when they're thrown together, though 
out in the open street the parson would not 
demean himself by touching the costermonger 
with so much as a finger-tip. The Eeverend 
Tilgoe might very probably lead others 
astray, but could scarcely be disimproved 
himself, for all his polished exterior. There- 
fore I think it's nice and unselfish of him to 
preach on classification in his book, and so 
try to sweep the less guilty out of his path, 
against the time w^hen he will come back to 
us for another lagging. 

Now when I reflect upon that poor fellow 
Ebenezer, I find that the thing of all others 



8 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

which helped most to bowl him over, was the 
companionship into which he was thrown. 
Tilgoe is himself so extremely base a man that 
(though he preaches and raves about the 
wickedness of everybody except himself) he 
cannot comprehend the position of one like 
Ebenezer; hence in his chapters upon classifi- 
cation, that howler leaves untouched a most im- 
portant point, namely, that the entire system 
weighs unduly in all its minute details upon men 
like Anderson. A gentleman, acting we will 
say under female influence, commits a forger}^ 
and finds himself among our lambs. Every 
second of every minute of every hour is a 
throb of agony to him until he is hardened 
or broken ; one of the two contingencies is in- 
evitable. His punishment therefore becomes 
at least twice as severe in its application as 
that of a bovine common fellow, who is cast 
for a much longer sentence. It may be 
argued that a judge in delivering sentence 
considers this point ; but in practice it is not 
so. Herded as he is with the vilest scum on 
earth — the Tilo-oes and the Sodas — he o-oes 
to inevitable ruin long before the end of, say 
five 3^ears, which is the briefest term of penal 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 9 

servitude ever given. Let us see, then, if we 
can't devise somethino- -which would touch 
this very real sore. 

Mind you I'm not talking nonsense, or want- 
ing to suggest that gentlemen, because they 
are gentlemen, should have a cosy prison to 
themselves with Brussels carpets andbooks from 
Mudie's and ices from Gunter's. Not a bit of it. 
We will start with the idea that length of sen- 
tences should continue in the main pretty much 
as they are, with such slight modifications as 
may seem promising. Now, in the last part 
of Ebenezer's manuscript, you were told that 
a Royal Commission sat upon the prison ques- 
tion, and that a compromise was come to. 
During the last part of his time, you were 
informed, new regulations came into force, by 
which the Sunday talks were ordered to be 
stopped, and strict silence maintained at labour. 
But, Lord bless your dear eyes, you don't ex 
pect such a half-and-half measure as that to 
work, do you ? If I see two chaps palaver- 
ing in whispers, do 3^ou think I'd always have 
the heart to report 'em ? Not I ! No m ore 
would junior warders, whether influenced by 
fivers or somethino^ better. It 'd be too like 



lo MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

that cup of somebody or others that was 
always at his Kps, and yet he couldn't drink, 
which must have been annoying. Besides, 
there are dozens of ways for men to commu- 
nicate which you can't possibly stop, try how 
you may. For the sake of humanity, let's 
admit at once that men's hearts are not of 
stone, and that even a chief-warder may lean 
sometimes to kindliness. Moreover, as things 
are, it's foolish to imagine that the best- 
intentioned warder could maintain absolute 
silence amono^st the men of a hard-labour 
party, unless the number under him were 
reduced to half a dozen. Say that his gang 
numbers fifteen or twenty, and that they are 
working at brick-making or in a quarry. 
They are not all tied together. Two are 
employed in one place, three in another a 
few yards to the right, and half a dozen a 
stone's throw to the left. In some cases his 
party is divided, one portion working outside 
a shed, the other inside. He cannot keep all 
his men in sight at once. Unless you have 
a warder to every five men or so, you won't 
prevent conversation, and those who tell you 
that the members of a labour-party are not 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. ii 

in deep confab during most of their working 
hours, are either deceiving themselves or 
making game of you. That's positive, as 
you'd know if you had been so long in the 
trade as I have. 

And if prisoners were divided with care 
and grouped in classes, what would it matter 
if they talked ? Two men of a better kind, 
as Ebenezer hints, would sigh over their fate 
and vow together ^ never to do it any more' 
(whatever it was) when they came out. Thus 
they'd strengthen each other's good resolu- 
tions rather than not ; whereas now (it's 
audible enough, even though it's said in 
whispers) an old scoundrel puts his finger 
on his nose and says with a wink, maybe 
in chapel, ' I'll show yer 'ow to enjoy life, 
my little cockawax, if ye've only the pluck 
to run a bit of risk, like the sodger does 
who gets the Victoria cross.' 

That's where it is : but how are you going 
to divide 'em ? Ebenezer had a plan of classing 
men by the amount of premeditation which 
their crime showed ; but that wouldn't quite 
answer, I'm afraid : not but what I'd rather 
take a murderer for a servant any day, than 



12 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

an old fence. Neither could you class men 
altogether by the position they've held in life, 
although that ought to be taken into con- 
sideration more than it is. Our rulers lecj-is- 
late as if people were consistent — if they were, 
how dull the world would be — yet nobody's 
consistent with himself, and convicts less than 
any. Even the cultivated are wofully per- 
verse sometimes, possessed as it seems by 
devils. Some of 'em, and these the best- 
educated, develop a queer delight in degrad- 
ing themselves ; in plunging right down to 
the bottom all of a plump. I've known 
polished people to find pleasure in the foulest 
language and most filthy stories ; and now I 
remember, years ago, when I first joined, that 
there was a balcon}^ at Chatham which we 
called the ^ gentleman's landing,' where three 
parsons and two bankers, and a few ex-cavahy 
ofiicerswere located. They had all moved in 
tip-top society, among dukes and duchesses ; 
but do you suppose that they'd behave them- 
selves ? not they. There was constant uproar 
and row and blasphemy, and every sort of 
disgraceful sinfulness going on upon that 
landing. It was the worst spot in the whole 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 13 

prison — a bear-garden and a scandal — and 
yet these were men whom you would have 
expected to set a good example. And it 
wasn't that they were contaminated by others, 
because they went at it the moment they 
came in. It was as though their self-respect 
had smashed- up all at once and, that having 
gone down a bit to start with, they found com- 
fort in going as far as they could, plunging 
of their own free will, out of all reckoning, 
to the lowest abyss of all. 

Therefore, you see, I'm not pleading for 
the gentlemen-lags because they a-re gentle- 
men and fond of Brussels carpets; and I don't 
want to class by book-learning in an order of 
precedence like the nobility. When classi- 
fication is thoroughly gone into, I want the 
condition of the educated and sensitive- 
minded to be specially considered so far as 
their behaviour justifies it. In this lot, 
whom I call ' sensitive-minded,' I include not 
only parsons and officers and that, but clerks, 
the better class of shopmen, all in fact — to 
make the thing as broad as possible — who 
don't take the big jump just mentioned, and 
who, it being the first sentence, are really 



14 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

anxious to be kept out of temptation for the 
future. 

I've turned the matter over in my mind a 
good bit whilst hanging about the prison- 
yard attending to my duties, and this is 
what my cogitations came to. I'd classify 
new-comers hj their antecedents , and overhaul 
that hy looking at the nature oj the crime, 
and I'd set a vigilant watch over their con- 
duct while in prison. For instance, I'd say : 
B's. a gentleman by birth and so on, and his 
crime, forgery, committed in a moment of 
sudden temptation — is it? Very good. No. 1 
class for him, and labour suited to his 
powers ; and I'd hang a board in his cell 
which would be always before his eyes, 
whereon I'd write, ' So long as you are 
industrious and well-behaved you'll be 
treated with consideration. If you behave 
badly you'll be placed in bad company.' 
Then I'd say : C.'s a hot-tempered chap, of 
no education, and this is his first offence — is 
it ? In a moment of exasperation he struck 
his old 'ooman with a knife. We all know 
that women are very trying — though it's not 
quite right to stick 'em with knives. First class 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 15 

for him too. The gentleman can't expect to 
be thrown only among gentlemen ; but this 
ignorant fellow won't do him any harm, 
while the influence of the well-behaved, 
educated man can't but improve the ignorant 
one. Then I'd say : Reverend Aurelius 
Tilgoe, scamp of the first water, sneaking, 
crawling, calculating blackguard, who lays 
traps and waits like a vampire for his feast. 
His manners are beautiful, his education 
ditto, but his crime odious, and this his 
second sentence ; away with him ! Third 
class for the Keverend Aurelius, and bad grub 
and stiff work. He's a goat — a wolf in 
sheep's clothing. Put him with the ' old 
fences,' the Jaggses, the Sodas, the receivers 
of stolen goods, the men who are irreclaim- 
able. They won't hurt him and he won't 
hurt them, and they'll have a pretty and 
entertaining little society all to themselves. 
Spevins, too, though he was only undergoing 
a first sentence, would find himself in a lower 
class, because he is an old sinner, though 
hitherto undetected, and from the peculiar 
nature of his opinions is beyond reformatory 
influence. And then I'd apportion labour 



i6 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

according to the class. Class T. should have 
lightish labour. That of Class II. should be 
more stiff; while Tilgoe and his lot would 
have real awful w^ork to do, such as is done 
bv the unfortunate men in the basins. 

ft/ 

By-the-bye (this is a parenthesis) one com- 
placent convict writer complains, now that lie 
is out, that prison labour isn't hard enonoh, 
and that therefore ' the tax-payer ' should see 
to it. Wouldn't I like to send that chap for a 
bit into the blue Thames mud, and break his 
back for him ! I'd send him to Chatham to 
take his place among that thin, pale^ gaunt, 
cadaverous contingent, and see whether the 
work there isn't sufficiently hard for any 
man born of woman ! But where was I ? I 
seem to be aground again. Oh ! I remember, 
Ave were talking of classes. Well. Class I., 
being the best class, might be given extra 
advantages in the way of earning remission. 
Its members might, perhaps, being mostly 
men whose passions had run away with them 
whilst they were napping, be accorded also 
special means of shortening their sentences — 
say, in promising cases, by earning double 
marks. Each class would have to occupy a 



MR' SCARRAVVEGS SECOND GROWL. 17 

separate prison, of course, which might be 
difficult of arrangement, because the new 
plan would require an extra prison or two, 
and prisons cost money, and tax-payers cry 
out;, as Tilgoe knows right well. And yet 
here's an idea which strikes me all at once. 
The prisons of Portland and Chatham will 
become useless in three or four years at most, 
because the public works there will be 
finished, and convicts sentenced to hard 
labour must have stiff out-door work found 
for them somewhere else. Hence arises this 
brilliant idea of mine. First you build a new 
prison upon the spot selected for the new 
public works — this must be done in any case 
— and you employ the old prisons — it's a pity 
to dismantle them — for the incarceration of 
No. 1 class ; that is, of the men who would 
have light labour, such as shoemaking and 
tailoring, and so forth, instead of being sent 
out as they now are with the labourers and 
quarrymen. Plenty of suitable labour could 
be found for them there, independent of the 
stone- cutting and digging which, on a large 
scale, would have ceased. A great sail-loft 
might be erected, and the sails made for the 
VOL. III. 45 



1 8 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

royal navy ; also the anchors and chains for 
the same service, which would provide fitting 
work for such of the ignorant men who were 
originally tillers of the soil, but whose ante- 
cedents have placed them in a better class 
than that whose business it is to work in the 
clay. 

It appears necessary to Jimit the work of 
convicts to that required for government 
use in order to avoid rows, and yet this is a 
silly thing. Outside tradesmen have more 
than once complained that the public sale of 
the results of convict labour takes the bread 
out of the mouths of honest men. Nothing^ 
can be founded upon falser premises. A 
large proportion of convicts, be it remembered, 
were engaged in trades before they were 
locked up. Their work is withdrawn, there- 
fore, from the market for the time being, and 
would only be returned half-fold ; for it is a 
recognised fact that, by reason of his position, 
a convict cannot be expected to do much 
more than half what is daily accomplished 
by a free man. But it isn't worfch while 
arguing this point, for in the government 
service alone there is plenty of employment 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 19 

to be found which Class I. mieht be set to do 
in a prison where what are called 'Public 
Works ' have ceased to be. And it strikes 
me now, as I chat on and twist the thing 
over and over, that if the authorities prefer 
turning Portland prison into barracks, as I'm 
told they do, we could manage our first class 
in a diJBPerent way. Chatham prison, at this 
present moment, is divided into sections, 
each of which is a separate establishment, 
just as the water-tight compartments of a 
ship are separate. Why not make a trial of 
classes in some such fashion ? This latter 
plan would have the advantage over the 
other, that it could be put into force without 
delay, instead of waiting for the completion of 
the public works now in operation before 
trying the experiment. 

Tilgoe and the other complainants have, I 
regret to tell you, gained the end partly for 
which they wrote their books. They have 
succeeded in worriting the prison officials 
from the top of the tree down to the root. 
They have. even succeeded so well as to goad 
the advisers of her Gracious Majesty — God 
bless her I — who ought not to have demeaned 

45—2 



20 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

themselves by noticing such trash, to rake up 
the question once again, which before was 
tided over by the compromise. There was 
another Roval Commission a few months 
since. My lords have been bustling all over 
the place, just as they did before, and driving 
about and eating lunches, and they haven't 
discovered anything w^liich they didn't know 
already — that's odd, isn't it ? But they do see, 
at least so I've just been informed, that the 
silent system, as at present w^orked, is all my 
eye and my elbow. They propose — so the 
report recently issued says — to classify 
prisoners for the future by first convictions ; 
and I tell 'em now, if they don't think it 
over-bold in an honest tar as served his queen 
— God bless her I — and his country, to make 
suggestions, that they might just as well 
leave the matter as it was, for all the good 
their bustling has done. By this new plan 
they'll be putting Ebenezer and Spevins, the 
downy one, and men like MifFy and the 
poacher, whose only crime was that he 
couldn't be made to believe that rabbits 
weren't common property, all into one class. 
Another Spevins will be able to get round 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 21 

another Ebenezer, just as, I'm sorry to say, 
the first one did ; and no doubt MifFy being 
weak and the poacher being stupid and 
easily awed by superior talent, will join in 
some other notable scheme for relieving lords 
and ladies of their plate-chests. That's not 
the way to do it — maybe ten years hence 
they'll find that out, and take another drive, 
and some more lunch, and get a step farther 
on. England's always been slow, but, like 
the elephant, her foot, if round, and large, 
and heavy, is said to be sure, which it's a 
comfort to believe. Next time they hold a 
Koyal Commission they'll interview us 
warders, I hope, and add a little to our 
wages. We're a fine body of men, but not 
well used. There, there 1 now I'm beginning 
to cry out, just like the Reverend Aurelius. 
Avast there — put about — let's keep off that 
rock.* 

■^ Since the above was written an attempt has been 
made at Mill bank to put into force the suggestion of the 
Eoyal Commission as to classification. I'irst-sentence 
men are being drafted into two j^entagons which chance 
to be vacant, and they will remain there in solitude until 
a public works prison can be found for them. But theo- 
retically — I've not been a prisoner myself — I must say I 



22 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

There's another thing they'll look into 
some day perhaps, and that's the prison-farce 
called 'School.' I'm one with all the com- 
plainants there — even with Tilgoe. I have 
before me the schedule for the state of 
education at our prison of Dartmoor within 



agree with old Scarraweg. Grouping first-sentence men 
together must prove a farce, and defeat its own object, for 
the percentage of men under first sentence who have never 
really committed a previous crime is absurdly small. The 
experience of the police makes that as clear as noonday, 
so does that of the chaplains. Certain classes of crime are 
progressive. For example a man is taken and receives his 
first sentence for ' robbery with violence.' Ostensibly he 
has been seized by a sudden fury, and rushes out and 
garrots some one, although, up to the moment of this 
impulse, he has been a lambkin. The experience of the 
police shows clearly that robbery tcith violence is very 
seldoTii a first crime. The man has begun as a pickpocket, 
and becoming more reckless day by day, comes gradually 
to half-murdering a person to obtain his property, instead 
of, as at first, filching his goods when he wasn't looking. 
A certain prison official of great experience even declares 
that the percentage of ' first convictions ' which are really 
* first faults ' is as low as five in a hundred. If this is the 
case, and the evidence of very many of the most ex- 
perienced persons connected with prison discipline agrees 
on this point, then a classification of convicts by first 
convictions alone must be abortive and a mere waste of 
time. — Note by Printer's Devil, March, 1880. 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 23 

eighteen months. Here it is, and it speaks 
for itself : 



Prisoners . 
Previously convicted 
Never 



1st sentence of Penal Servitude . 


662 


2nd „ „ „ 


196 


3rd „ „ „ 


85 


4tii „ „ „ 


18 



Education — Good 

,, Moderate 

is^il . 



771 
190 



961 



961 



961 



96 
191 
674 ! 



Look at that ! Two-thirds of the men 
under our charge now are unable to read and 
write at all ; and yet seven hundred and 
seventy- one out of their number have been 
in durance vile before (either in convict or 
county prisons), and all have been through 
the preliminary nine months of solitary 
confinement which are known as 'separates.' 
There are schoolmasters and assistants who 
buzz about, but the result of their labours 
this schedule clearly shows. Yet, dear me, 
it strikes me that perhaps my lords overlook 
this on purpose, as being disinclined to educate 



24 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

the masses. Maybe they agree with what 
Spevins remarked about education doing more 
harm than good to natures already gangrened. 
Maybe they're of opinion that the over-educa- 
tion of the lower classes is already doing 
social harm enouorh without addino^ to the 
hubbub, which looms in the future, the leaven 
of a few thousand criminals. Lots of people 
are of that opinion, I know; and it isn't for the 
likes of me to say who is right. But if these 
are, then I say : ' Do away with it altogether, 
and give the money saved in salaries as extra 
pay to warders. One schoolmaster would be 
wanted in each prison to keej) the library 
and write the letters of the illiterate, and 
that's all. Give the surj)lus to us janitors to 
make our lives more pleasant. But if they 
really do not object to prisoners learning 
something that may do 'em good — they need 
not be taught more than to write and read — ■ 
why can't they amalgamate the educational 
arrangements in the preliminary, or close 
prisons ? The schoolmaster at Chatham, used 
to complain, as I remember, that it wasn't 
lively work trying to instil A B C of an 
evening into a stupid man worn out with toil. 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 25 

Now there's no doubt that the digging out of 
those splendid basins there is fearful toil. 
Men stand on platforms, six- deep one above 
another, the lo^Yest buried to the waist in 
filth, and there they shovel, shovel, shovel, 
throwing up foul stuff from one platform to 
another, with an upward movement which 
WTenches every muscle. Broken with fatigue 
— weary in body and vacant in mind — it's not 
likely that of an evening they should think 
of anything but bed. Moreover they are 
not roused in any way to the advantage of 
improving themselves. Why not go at 
reading and writing, tooth and nail, during 
' separates ' at Pentonville and Millbank ? 
They're set to pick oakum, or weave mats, or 
make shoes there, merely to employ their 
minds, and so prevent them from turning into 
idiots (because the real punishment of that 
stage is downright solitude — not work). Why 
not, then, make school the chief business for 
the first nine months of those that can't read 
or write % Much may be done in nine 
months, working day after day ; and after 
that, when they are sent to public works, a 
little keeping up now and again will prevent 



26 MR, SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

their forgetting what they've learnt. Do 
you know that in summer-time illiterate 
convicts are instructed in the mysteries of 
the three K's at the rate of half an hour a 
week ? In my mind's eye (you see I'm 
growing quite literary and poetical — there's 
never any knowing what we may come to !) 
I behold education going on at Pentonville ; 
the men located in particular halls and 
landings, not as at present, according as to 
whether they make mats or shoes or scratch 
oakum into shreds, but according to their 
educational proficiency. The cell- doors all 
open in a particular hall we'll say, each 
prisoner alone with book and slate within his 
own domain ; the schoolmaster hovering like 
a seamew in the centre space, to be sum- 
moned by this or that prisoner, who may 
find himself in a fog, by touching the alarm, 
with which at other times he summons the 
warder placed in charge of him. The chaplain 
flutters here and there, or swoops. The head- 
schoolmaster gives an eye all round ; the 
subs go in from cell to cell, unfurl the multi- 
plication-table, holy-stone the slate, scrub up 
the decks, set the man to work, and encourage 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 27 

him to overhaul his wits. The ignorant 
costermono^er, who struck his old 'ooman in a 
fit of ungoverned temper, might grow hope- 
ful, seeino" somethino^ bris^ht in front of him, 
instead of brooding over the old gal's delin- 
quencies, and reflecting upon the best place 
to give her another '^ nasty one" w^hen he 
comes out, while he mechanically weaves his 
mat. Upon my word, my eyes grow moist 
at the picture ; but this won't do, you know. 
My lords must know better than an old 
battered bit of goods like me. They have 
their reasons for letting things slide, though 
what Spevins said about the School Board 
never reaching such gutter-snipes as he was, 
ought to make them turn this over between 
two goes of beef and pickles. Granted that 
incorrigibles should not be given new weapons 
wherewith to wound, surely the gutter-snipes 
whom the School Board cannot hope to reach 
do not begin by being incorrigibles \ Wouldn't 
it be well to give 'em just one chance, poor 
creatures, of learning something that isn't 
the "public" and the '"pawnshop," and then 
thieves' tricks in gaol ? Reformatories ! I 
see you shape the word. Ah, well ! I'm a 



28 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

prison-warder, not a reformatory guy. But 
just let me whisper in your ear. The re- 
formatories want at least quite as much 
overhauling as convict-prisons do. If you 
want to sweep out the stable thoroughly, 
you must begin at the extreme end. If 
reformatories were not conducted by old 
women (not always of the same sex as the 
old 'ooman who got stuck) their results would 
be better, maybe, than they are. But as I'm 
a prison-warder, never mind them, or they'll 
swear I'm jealous.' 

It looks as if I was working up into a 
tantrum again, doesn't it ? My stars ! What 
a bad opinion you will have of me ! I've 
growled a bit, and found fault, for that's the 
privilege of every true-born Briton ; and my 
life's a dreary one — that's a fact. And now 
for a change — just to set myself to rights — 
I'll have a good snap at you, ladies and gents ; 
that's to say, ' the Public ' — nothing to do 
with the tavern, mind ; though perhaps you 
think I know more of that than about you. 
You listen with open ears and mouths and 
eyes to the mewing of ex-convicts ; you forget 
that malignant snarling is their only poor 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 29 

revenge. You cry out, ^ Oh lor' ! poor dears ! 
ain't they used shocking ! Giv' 'em a httle 
wine and water, and a good blow-out at 
Christmas ; and make 'em happy and fat, 
and reform 'em and make 'em honest — there's 
dear good warders !' That's mighty fine, 
ladies and gents ; but how about your own 
part of the business — a part which is your 
province, and not ours ? You hand us over 
a parcel of rascals, and say, ^ Lock up the 
nasty lubbers, and pull 'em round a bit.' We 
lock 'em up, and pull 'em round as much as 
we can, and then return 'em to you again. 
What do you do ? Do you give 'em a help- 
ing hand 1 Do you say, * Well, poor chaps, 
you've burnt your fingers, and learnt a lesson, 
and so here's another chance V Not you ! 
What Spevins said in that scoffing, cynical 
way of his is true — perfectly and awfully and 
fearfully true ! That many men return to 
crime is your fault more than their own ; for 
you shout from the top of the stairs, ' Be 
good, and eat your pudding, and don't kick 
up a row/ while all the time you've shut the 
kitchen door and locked it. What's the use 
of our reforming men (given even that we 



so MR. SCARRAWEG'S SECOND GROWL. 

can do that), if you are to kick 'em into the 
gutter when we give 'em back to you ? No. 
Your Royal Commissions, and your lunches, 
and your pickles, and your fine speeches in 
Parliament about the prison system, are so 
much bunkum till you've set that right. If 
all the archangels were to lay their golden 
wigs together to invent a system, it wouldn't 
and couldn't work properly till you've settled 
what's to be done wdth prisoners when their 
time is up. 

The Prisoners' Aid Societies are lovely, 
doubtless — one, I think, is even dubbed 
* Koyal,' after her Gracious Majesty — God 
bless her ! — but what they do is very little, 
and must be very little till the question's 
taken seriously up. Go round, as I have 
often done, with a heavy heart, to each old 
lag on a long landing, and ask him what the 
Prisoners' Aid Societies did for him when he 
last went out. The secretaries of various 
Prisoners' Aid Societies will be down, I dare 
say, upon the old tar for telling tales out of 
school, and will show beautiful books, of course. 
But I can't help that. I prefer to believe the 
prisoners in this matter because they one and 



MR, SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 31 

all sing the same song. You spend too much 
on ornament, I say to these societies ; and 
you've no business to spend the money of 
poor bruised and fallen creatures, unless you 
can assure them an equivalent in such work 
as they are suited for. You mean well, I 
don't doubt ; but that ain't enough, my lads. 
Go along a prison landing, the first that 
comes, ladies and gents — it doesn't matter 
where — and hear what the prisoners have 
got to say upon the subject, and mark how 
sore they are, and how they feel they're 
wronged ; and I'll bet a dollar that you'll be 
considerably surprised. In this instance, the 
prisoner's word may be taken to be of some 
value ; for his charges are direct, and he 
would gain nothing by telling lies. 

Well now ! Here in my office, as it 
happens, are some of the lovely books — 
sweetly bound, surelie ! — a bundle of annual 
reports. I'll take one up at hazard, the first 
that comes. Let us glance over this one, 
which chances to be for the year ending 
December, 1878. First, there are a lot of 
what they are pleased to call ' specimen- 
cases/ purporting to be letters of thanks from 



32 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

mystically ^initialled persons, which remind 
me a good deal too much of the mysterious 
specimen-cures of the quack doctors. ' Dear 
sir, I have been for ten years suffering from 
an incurable liver complaint ; but on taking 
one of your pills I recovered in five minutes/ 
All that sort of thing. These cases may be 
genuine. I hope they are, with all my heart. 
It's a curious coincidence that none of the 
men who have come under my charge have 
ever been fortunate enough to obtain help 
from any of these societies ; and I've had 
many thousands under lock and key in my 
time. What says the balance-sheet before 
me ? Kent, salaries, and office-expenses (in 
round numbers), £700. That seems a good 
deal, doesn't if? But perhaps the public 
subscribes its millions. 

Amounts received on account of male 
prisoners (that means gratuities paid by 
government to give the chaps a chance), 
£2700. 

Amounts paid by the society on behalf of 
prisoners (that is in attempts, more or less 
unsuccessful, to get work for them), £2800. 

What do you make of that ? I make out, 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 33 

but p'raps I'm an old stoopid, that this 
society, which issues pretty reports, spends 
seven times as much money upon itself and its 
■salaried officers as it does on those ivhom it 
makes believe to assist! How's that, mess- 
mate ? Makes believe, I say advisedly, with- 
out any intention of implying fraud. The 
evidence of the prisoners and those who are 
over them, all points to the fact that the 
good done is almost nil. The society spends 
a hundred a year in looking for work which 
doesn't come ; it would be quite as well to 
add that amount at once to the already huge 
salary list, and make no more bother about 
rthe criminals. 

And now you'll say, I suppose, that I 
grumble a lot and don't offer a remedy. 
Well, then, let us try to see how these 
things could be improved. In the first 
place, the Aid Societies resent interference 
.of any kind on the part of prison officials. 
They say, ' You send us the men, and ask no 
questions.' Now that's ridiculous, at the out- 
.set. Surely governors and chaplains — those 
who have been in close communication with 
itheir charges during their sentence (for some 

VOL. III. 46 



34 MR. SCARRAWEG'S SECOND GROWL. 



of the chaplains really do their work, and 
some of the governors take an interest in 
their prisoners) — should be allowed to be on 
the committee of the societies % Who more 
competent than they that have studied the 
men for years through all their phases, to 
point out the most deserving cases and the 
best way of assisting them ? Perhaps, too, 
the public would be more likely to give 
certain gaol-birds another chance if the re- 
commendation was endorsed by the governor 
and the chaplain, instead of being only signed 
by a parcel of gents who are nobodies and 
who can't possibly know anything individually 
of the man recommended. As it is, I could 
point out one chaplain who has not been unsuc- 
cessful in his own small way in getting berths 
iox 'proteges through his own unaided influence; 
therefore the question isn't so hopeless as it 
looks. If the thing were done on the quiet, 
much might be achieved in the way of emi- 
gration, if the puhlic ivoidd only help. A 
system might be organised, too, county by 
county, whereby a man might be met at the 
prison-door and spirited away at once to a 
part of England where he is not known and 



MR. SCARRAWEG'S SECOND GROWL. 35 

where bad influences would not have full 
play, mstead of being kept kicking his heels 
and eating out his heart to no purpose in 
London, where, when he discovers how 
broken is the reed he's asked to lean on, he 
inevitably falls back among his old pals, 
through sheer hopelessness. 

But to arrive at this the public must come 
forward — that public which is always generous 
when its sympathies are aroused, and when it 
knows it can trust those to do their best who 
collect the money. As matters stand, I'm 
not surprised that people are indifferent. 
They look at the mysterious reports which 
don't mean anything at all, and they know 
that the committees therein advertised are 
made up of dolls. They know that the 
aristocratic gentlemen on those committees 
have their own business to attend to, and are 
content to give their subscriptions and their 
names and to suppose by this trifling trouble 
they have paved the road to heaven. They 
know that such real business as is actually 
accomplished is done by persons who are 
very nice people, no doubt, across a dinner- 
table, but who have no weight and no in- 

46—2 



36 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

fluence. If I was a gent at large, and one of 
these persons came to me and asked me to give 
an ex-convict a chance as a servant, I'd say : 

•What do you know of him, and who 
are you that recommend him ? It stands to 
reason that you know nothing of him of your 
own knowledge ; and if you did, it wouldn't 
help the matter, because your recommenda- 
tion is of no value.' 

That's how it is, messmates, that these 
societies (with the best intentions in the 
world, I daresay) are of so little practical 
use. Enlist the prison- officials of the highest 
class in the cause — men whose recommenda- 
tion would be of weight (not men like a head 
of the prisons department, for example, who 
hasn't time) — form committees consisting of 
half-a-dozen influential men who are not mere 
titled lardydas, or people who are already full 
of business, men who will really look into 
the subject and be responsible, and give their 
orders to their agents instead of leaving the 
ao:ents, mere men of straw, to struo-crle alono^ 
alone and hopelessly. This much being done 
to start with, a strong appeal may be made 
to the public, to which the public — trusting 



MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. y] 

its emissaries — will surely not turn a deaf 
ear; for the societies are good in principle 
(no one denies that), but they need reorga- 
nisation — absolute and complete and entire, to 
make them also useful in practice. 

Yes, I believe in the public, though some- 
times, ladies and gents, you do need a deal 
of shaking up. Come now ! to oblige an old 
and faithful servant of her Majesty, do just 
wake up for once and look to this. Put the 
prisoners and the societies face to face, and 
see if the latter can stand before the impeach- 
ment. Bid them reorofanise themselves and 
be quick about it^ and wipe out the list of 
idiotic failures ; and lend a sturdy hand to 
help them so to do ; and while you're awake 
and busy^ just whisper a word to the police 
in passing. Remember that a fallen creature 
can't walk steadily if you make his path so 
precious rough. I seem to be wandering 
from one subject to another, but I'm not, for 
the two run in parallel grooves. Police- 
supervision must be strict with the bad uns, 
but there can be no doubt but that for the 
better and more hopeful lot it's a grievous 
blister, which draws all the strength out of 'em. 



38 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

What did it do for Jaggs, for in- 
stance, when he took refuge in the work'us ? 
To men who'd Hke to reform, but who are 
vacihating, it does this. It takes them by 
the collar and flings 'em face downward on 
the stones — that's what it does ; and then it 
says, ' Oh, you dirty wretch ! Pah ! ain't you 
ashamed to have covered yourself so with 
mud ?' 

You'd know, ladies and gents, if you 
thought about it, that a clerk who has got 
into a mess and is doing his hard labour, is 
rendered more desponding by the sad future 
than by the disagreeable present. Say he 
has his five years to do — well and good. 
He'll do the term bravely, under proper 
auspices, more often than not. Bub he has 
no chance. He's aware that when he comes 
out he will be unable to get employment, and 
that the police will tell him to earn an honest 
living or look out for squalls ; and he'll say, 
' How ? — I've tried, and can't.' And then 
they'll say, * Oh, go along ! don't talk to us ; 
you must !' And then he'll go to an Aid 
Society, and a dyspeptic youth'll yawn at 
him (for he's the twentieth that's called that 



MR, SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWE 39 

morning) and say, ' Oh, what a nuisance ! 
There's a place on board ship ! You'll 
have to run up and down the rigging Hke 
one o'clock — jolly and healthy, you know. 
A life on the ocean wave, and so forth/ And 
then t'other 11 answer timidly (many rebuffs 
will have made him timid), ' If you please, 
by profession I'm a clerk. I've never been 
to sea, and am seasick even on the way to 
Margate ; and I shall break my neck, and 
who then will look after my poor wife who 
has lingered — God knows how, and I only 
wish she hadn't, for now she'll starve — during 
the time I was locked up '?' There's only 
one end to that fellow, Mr. and Mrs. Public — 
despair and recklessness and habitual crime ; 
and knowing from the experience of others 
that such must be his end, while he's being 
preached at by the parson during his first 
lagging, he don't care to pull himself together 
— why should he '? Is it a wonder that men 
shrug their shoulders and don't try ? They're 
the wise ones, I'm bound to confess, though 
I'm a prison- officer. The end's bound to be 
the same — a little sooner, that's all; and think 
of the heartburnings and disappointments that 



40 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 

are economised by swift declension ! Ajv 
matters stand, the system would work well 
enough (as I've said afore, we can't expect per- 
fection) if prisoners were certain that they'd 
have fair play w^hen their term's np. It's all 
very well for men with private friends ; I'm 
not talking of course of them. I'm talking of 
the homeless, solitary creatures who see 
through the prison-gate only a great cold 
dark desert without a shrub for shelter, a 
drop of water to quench their thirst, or an 
ear of corn for food. They are told to walk 
about in that desert and be jolly. At one 
edge of it — the nearer edge — they see a low 
shambling pothouse, ruinous but warm, 
with mulled ale simmering on the hearth, a 
joint of roast beef upon the spit. There's 
good shelter there, and something to fill the 
belly. If the crazy roof falls in upon the 
inmates, it can't be helped. Is it a wonder 
that the released prisoners prefer to run the 
risk of the roof tumblinsf in instead of walk- 
ing gaily out at once into absolute starva- 
tion % There, there ! ladies and gents — sen- 
timental, transcendental creatures who make 
a pother over a spiteful ex-convict's whine> 



MR, SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 41 

why don't you take up this matter in real 
earnest ? You're mouthing pharisees, I 
regre!: to tell you, clad in rich robes over 
foul underhnen. You weep buckets over 
the fable of the good Samaritan, and tell 
each other w^hat a perfect gentleman he was ; 
and the next minute, when you come upon 
a wounded man yourselves, pass quickly by 
like the Levite with your noses between 
finger and thumb, for fear lest the wounds 
might offend your nostrils I Do your dooty. 
See that the men have a chance if they try 
to reform, and then growl as much as you 
please at the prison system. We'll bear it ! 
Take the beam out of your own eye first — 
then take tlie mote from ourn if you 
choose. 

Now look at that I That's twice I've got 
in a real downright passion. The first time 
with the snivelling, yowling, hypocritical ex- 
felons ; the second time with a more lofty 
and impudent and exasperating hypocrisy. 
For, ladies and gents, at bottom it's all your 
own doing. Do remember that I It can't 
be helped if I'm rude — the fault of that also 
lies with you, not me — yet for politeness' 



42 MR. SCARRAWEGS SECOND GROWL. 



sake, to smooth you down a bit, as I want 
you to do me a favour, I'll pretend, if you 
like, to be sorry, in that I've again got into 
a tantrum and blurted out just one or two 
home-truths. 




CHAPTEK III. 




MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 

N second thoughts, I won't pretend 
to be sorry for having been cross 
with you, ladies and gents ; be- 
cause, with your mincing ways and artificial 
manners, it's a kindness to show you a spade 
and call it one sometimes. But I'm sorry 
that my temper made me imprudent ; and so, 
as I really am honest, if rough, and mean 
well, I hope humbly that you'll stand between 
me and my lords if so be as they're vicious 
and turn me out of my berth. I doubt if 
they will, for they mean well too, I believe, 
and will overlook a free-spoken old chap's 
zeal ; not but what I feel a sinking in having 
been fool enough to send that there schedule 
to the printer's. It's the real one for the 



44 MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 

autumn of 1878, and I'm not quite clear that 
the Home Office bigwigs Hke having papers 
of that sort bandied about ; more partikler 
when they tell such a tale as this does. But 
cheer up ! The public ought to see those 
things, and, if so be as I'm turned out, I'll 
go down and call upon her Gracious Majesty 
— God bless her ! — at Buckingham Palace, 
where she's always to be found, I'm told, by 
her loyal lieges, and show her my medal, with 
my best scrape of the left foot, and remind 
her (which she's safe to remember when she 
sees me) that she pinned it on my breast 
with her own royal pin, which went right 
through my heart as well as my jacket, and 
ask her to intercede for an old salt. 

Now that's real queer, or w^ould be ! It's 
real queer that I should stick to my berth so 
tight, and yet be always complaining of it. 
Well, well. Living along with convicts 
is contaminating, no doubt. Aboard the 
Arethusa I was content enough ; but what's 
the use of going back to those halcyon 
days ? That's a good word, and you'll wonder 
how I learnt it. Bless your heart alive ! I've 
learnt a power of words, and things too, since 



MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 45 

I left the navy. As I don't go out with the 
parties myself when they leave for labour, 
I've a good deal of time on hand, in spite of 
office- work, and our little library's a godsend 
to me ; and if so be as you like to send us 
some books, I know all the officers will be 
verv thankful. 

Yes, it's funny to think that I should be 
afraid of getting the sack ; and I buried 
alive in the centre of this infernal bog, with 
no hope of ever being promoted any more. 
In summer it's not quite so bad, because now 
and then a gent comes fishing down the 
streams, and parties come picnicking to look 
at the scenery, and leave old bottles and bits 
of paper about, which is cheerful and sociable, 
like Friday's foot in the sand, showing that 
there's other folk in the world besides us 
prison-folk. And the tourists admire the 
place vastly, for there's a power of wild- 
flowers, and they say the sunsets are particu- 
larly fine ; but I'm not a fair judge of those 
things, because my duties make me see more 
of the sunrise than is pleasant. But in the 
winter ! My conscience ! It's a sore trial to 
younger bones than mine. The warders are 



46 MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 

half frozen to death watchino- the labour- 
parties in the quarry or on the bog ; for 
they've got to stand still, with their eyes 
wide open, while the convicts can keep them- 
selves warm by work. And then the days 
when the blanket-fogs come down, sticking in 
your throat like tufts of wool, and making 
your eyes smart again as you feel your way 
across the yard ; and the long dull evenings. 
We've got a nice recreation-room, to be 
sure, with a brisk fire, and a library and a 
billiard-room, where we can sit and chat when 
not on duty, and we do sit there mostly 
rather than go home ; for (as if we weren't 
miserable enough already) six families are 
put to live in each of the houses, with only 
one staircase and one door, and you can 
imagine the quarrelling of the wives and the 
screaming, up and downstairs, when Tommy 
has been playing in the hall Avithout wiping 
his feet, or throwing tea-leaves on somebody's 
head, between the balusters ; for some have 
children and some haven't, and those that 
haven't can't be expected to like mess and 
flue in their hair, and cleaning up their hall 
and passage day and' 'night after ,other 



MR. SCARRAWEG'S THIRD GROWL. 47 

people's brats. Then we've a string-band 
that plays quite heavenly, though it's a bit 
worriting when they're learning something 
new, and are groping about among the notes. 
We've an assistant- warder who's a first-class 
flute ; and another who'd make you split your 
sides with laughing when he blacks his face 
and rattles the bones. For we've a nigger 
minstrel company — oh yes ! and gave a grand 
entertainment last Christmas in the Duchy 
Inn, with whisky and water and negus for the 
ladies, to which everybody came and was 
delighted. The governor himself looked in 
for a minute, quite affable ; and the chaplain 
and his lady, and the doctor and his — all the 
tip-top company of the place. There isn't 
much of it, that's sure ; but what there is is 
spicy. And the shopkeeper and his lady 
came — we've only one shop, but it's a won- 
derful shop, vvhere you can buy any mortal 
thing, from a cofiin to a stay-lace — and he was 
pleased to say he hadn't spent such a merry 
Christmas for many a long year, which was 
kind and friendly of him, wasn't it ? 

We manage to keep our blood from drying 
up, there being a lot of us, and most of us 



48 MR. SCARRAWEG'S THIRD GROWL. 

married raen ; but it isn't so with the gentle- 
folk, and they don't have a good old time. 
You see there's no society for 'em, and 
they're too few to form a circle for them- 
selves. There's no visiting nearer than 
Tavistock, which is eight miles away, with 
a woeful road. To be sure there's a church 
and a parson, independent of the prison ; 
but it's a queer church, and a queerer 
parson — or used to be years ago, when I 
first joined at Dartmoor. 

You see, Princetown is a chapel-of-ease to 
Lidf ord, which is the biggest and least popu- 
lated parish in all England. It's, as it were, 
at the end of the earth, all among the 
forgotten lumber of creation. But the 
broom reaches the extreme corners at 
last, and all is made clean and ship-shape. 
Nowadays even remote chapels-of-ease have 
to be looked sharply after, or some prying 
fellow will put his finger on the sore place, 
and raise an outcry. Why can't people 
mind their own business, I always wonder. 
But after all, if it were not for the idle 
busy-bodies who stir up the waters merely 
because they've nothing else to do, our 



MR. SCARRAWEG'S THIRD GROWL. 49 

streams would all grow stagnant, and be 
a prey to insects. But now I'm steering all 
crooked again, as usual. Let me see — 
where was I ? Ob, I know. 

In tlio time of our late governor — that's 
him as Ebenezer christened ' the martinet' — 
our swells couldn't hit it off at all. Our 
wives quarrel enough among themselves, 
Lord knows, but it was nothing to these 
nobs. They didn't scream and cackle, as our 
wives do, but they quarrelled none the less. 
Bless your dear heart, it was awful ! There 
was only the governor, who was a bachelor, 
and the deputy, also a bachelor; and the 
chaplain and the doctor who were both 
married. The chaplain had a mother-in-law ; 
so that makes four gents and three ladies. 
And do you think they could hit it off ? JSTot 
they. The mother-in-law was always inter- 
fering, and telling the doctor that his wife 
read too many novels, and telling the wife 
that her husband smoked too many pipes, 
and holding up her own daughter and her 
husband as models to imitate, which was, of 
course, provoking. And then she would talk 
to the convicts when she met them on the 



50 MR. SCARRAIVEG'S THIRD GROWL. 



road, and ask them Bible questions, and feel 
their souls as if they were pulses ; and didn't 
that rile the governor ? Once there was a 
real flare-up, when the governor (who was 
a good sort, when he wasn't peeping through 
spy-holes, if a little too much of a disci- 
plinarian), came strutting round the corner 
and found the mother-in-law in deep confab 
with an old lag. 

' What's the meaning of this ?' he roared 
out. * Where's the warder who has charge 
of this rascal ?' 

' He's took ill with cholic in the inside,' 
she says, as hoity-toity as you ^Dlease ; ' so 
he's sitting by the fire in our kitchen, and I'm 
looking after the old man. He won't run 
away, for he's too weak in his legs, and 
besides, I've promised him a bit of bread- 
and-butter if he's quiet, and I'm improving 
him as to a future state.' 

But though that old gal thought she could 
manage everyone, she found the governor a 
bit too much for her. He packed off the 
warder with the cholic, who recovered in no 
time, and spoke out so severe to the chap- 
lain, and threatened such awful thino;s as to 



MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 51 

what the Home Office people would do, that 
the doctor and his wife didn't try to conceal 
their glee at the prospect of the enemy being 
discomfited; and then there was a jolly 
rumpus all round. The governor didn't 
speak to the chaplain's family, and the chap- 
lain's family didn't speak to the doctor's 
family ; and when one lady met another in 
the road, they both looked through each other 
with turned-up noses and sniffings, and then 
went home to their husbands and had hys- 
terics, and said they were insulted. This was 
pretty bad, considering that they'd read all 
their books, and sometimes the noospapers 
went wrong for days togethers, and they'd 
nothing to think of but their grievances ; 
but something happened just then which 
made it worse. It was at the time when the 
Scripture-reader was frozen ; one of the 
stiffest winters we had had for years, and 
they were none of them mild. The snow 
lay upon the moor for wrecks, and the tem- 
pestuous winds swirled it into dangerous 
eddies. Christmas arrived, but we were lite- 
rally snowed up. The usual carts from 
Tavistock didn't arrive, and the gentlefolk, 

47—2 
LIBRARY 

u^'iVERS!rv of Illinois 



52 MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 

who were going to have private rival festivi- 
ties, out of spite, all alone by theirselves, 
were in a quandary. The doctor's family had 
a leg of mutton left, but was out of coals. 
The chaplain s family were well enough off 
for fuel, but hadn't a bit of meat. You 
suppose that they made up their quarrels for 
the sake of their stomachs, don't you \ They 
didn't do anything of the kind. The men 
would have been glad to do so, but their 
women would not let them. The doctor's 
family broke up three kitchen- chairs and a 
bookcase to roast the mutton by ; and the 
chaplains family lived for five days and 
nights on plum-pudding and mince-pies, 
and comforted themselves with the contem- 
plation of a more blissful future in another 
world. 

Don't you think they envied the convicts 
their strong broth ? But let us get back to 
business. I Avas looking over the proofs just 
now of Ebenezer's manuscript, and came 
upon what Mr. Tilgoe said about the * tax- 
payers.' It was an ingenious idea to try and 
frighten John Bull by pointing to his 
pocket ; but unfortunately for the Reverend 



MR. SCARRAWECS THIRD GROWL. 53 

Aurelius, liis statements have no foundation 
in fact, as can easily be shown. He says 
that all convict labour is bad and unremunera- 
tive, which, as all sweeping statements are, 
is a lie. Look at the new prison halls which 
have recently been built, here at Dartmoor, 
at Pentonville, at Wormwood Scrubs, etc. 
All built by convict labour ; masonry of the 
best class. Look at the Portland Break- 
water ; the noble basins which have been 
growing at Chatham within the last twenty 
years ; vast constructions of concrete faced 
with granite, which will stand as long as 
England does. Their only fault is that they 
are too perfect — too highly wrought and 
artistically finished — too beautiful for the 
purpose which they have to serve. Look 
at the steel models made for the use of the 
artillery — elegant playthings worked up in 
the highest style — the parquetry flooring 
manufactured for the Admiralty — the elabo- 
rate stone bas-reliefs in St. Peter's church 
at Portland. All convict labour — every bit 
of it — which can hold its own beside any 
skilled labour of free men. Unhappily the 
public do not see these things ; more's the 



54 MR. SCARRAWEQS THIRD GROWL. 

pity. Well, let us take something that they 
do see — the clothing of the Metropolitan 
Police. 

Every coat, every pair of trousers, every 
boot worn by a London policeman is made 
in a convict prison — and very well made 
they are. We turn out at Dartmoor alone 
nine thousand pair of boots a year ; what do 
you think of that ? But the silly falsehoods 
of these ex-convicts (may the ex soon vanish !) 
make me feel rather poorly again. One 
says that Dartmoor might be made * to 
blossom like the rose.' It is clear that that 
person was never a member of a bog party 
there, or he would have a painful remem- 
brance of the substratum of o-ranite Avhich 
underlies the bog and peeps out at every 
yard or two. As it happens, that bog-work 
at Princetown is about the only convict 
labour that reallv is unremunerative, for, con- 
sidering the trouble of it, the land isn't 
worth reclaiming, and the frequent fogs and 
rains keep the bog parties inside the prison 
walls much too often. So you see, in his 
statement about the rose, this fellow lies as 
in other things, which makes me feel better. 



MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 55 

for T like people to be consistent when they 
can. 

But what does it signify, I should like to 
know, in the long-run, whether the system 
pays or not ? Penal settlements ain't specu- 
lations the only object of whose existence is 
to make money. Of course it's well that 
convicts should be made to work out their 
keep as much as possible ; but if ends don't 
exactly meet, it can't be helped. And con- 
sidering all the drawbacks and difficulties 
which are thrown in our way, we get quite 
as much out of our gaol-birds as we have a 
right to expect. These convict writers are 
constantly stultifying themselves. Indi- 
vidually, they are poor martyrs who are very 
illused, and true objects for the pity of the 
public. They ought to have been petted, 
instead of being worried ; but at the same 
time they declare that all except themselves 
are idle loons who are not worked half hard 
enough. Isn't that something like what you 
might call a paradox ? It's a sad fact that 
the criminal class will exist ; that, when the 
scamps are taken, they must be locked up, 
and that when locked up they will cost some- 



56 MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 

thing. Poor John Bull knows that, but he's 
on the horns of a what-d'ye-call-it. For 
he'd like to grind as much as he can besides 
whining out of the wicked wretches, but doesn't 
dare push his prerogative too far for fear of 
his sons and daughters who have nerves. 

If Miss Maria cauo^ht him sfivin.of the 
fascinating burglar as hard a task as he'd 
give to one of his own paid labourers who's 
been too stupid to go astray, she'd have fits 
upon the door-mat, and call papa a brute, and 
make his home uncomfortable. If Miss 
Maria would only mind her worsted-work, or 
even take to making cookery messes at 
South Kensington, her par would act more 
sensibly than now he can ; and yet for all that, 
his servants watch his interests, and in this 
difficulty, as in others, steer skilfully between 
the rocks. 

Miss Maria has a will of her own, and is 
not over- wise ; and is given to interfering. 
One day she stamped her foot, and said : 

* Par, that blessed burglar, with the nice 
side-curls, who looks so big and burly, has 
got consumption. Don't say he hasn't, 
because I know he has, for I have heard him 



MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 57 



cough, and whatever you do, don't contradict. 
What's the good of broad shoulders and im- 
mense calves if your lungs are touched % 
His lungs are touched. I know it I So 
look out, and don't you dare to give him 
more than six hours work a day. And, if he 
coughs again, lend him a comforter. Stay ! 
I'll knit one with my own fair fingers.' 

And she did. What does her par do, the 
old dog ? He whispers to his steward : 

' Don't disobey Miss Maria, for goodness 
gracious' sake, or she'll tease ; and, being 
rich, I'll do anj^thing for a quiet life. Work 
her burglar — for whom she shows, I must 
say, a most improper admiration — six hours 
a day, no more ; but during that time see 
that he doesn't idle.' 

Don't it strike you, ladies and gents, as a 
wee bit ungrateful that, Miss Maria having 
settled the hours, her burglar should whip 
round and jeer her par because he can't 
force the lazy devil's body to earn all its 
sustenance ? Yet so it is. Her par's steward 
does his best. The day's tale of work may 
be short, perhaps, owing to Miss Maria's 
nerves, but it'll be good, or that steward will 



58 MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 

know the reason why. Under existing cir- 
cumstances, that's all he can try to do. 

At Chatham, as you know, the work's 
extra hard. Miss Maria doesn't often stroll 
that way ; but then^ the steward being fear- 
ful lest she might, gives a higher scale of 
diet. The invalids can't do anything except 
go wrong — which they'd do very well indeed 
if you'd give them the chance ; so, in the 
general shaking up of the remunerative 
results of convict labour, you've got to take 
into consideration : firstly, Miss Maria's 
nerves ; secondly, Miss Maria's unwholesome 
fad for burglars ; thirdly, the fact that able- 
bodied burglars don't like quarrying, and 
don't do more than they can help ; fourthly, 
that invalid burglars can't do any work, 
except in the matter of finishing the educa- 
tion of neophytes, which is not precisely pro- 
ductive of economy to Government. There- 
fore it's a never-endinof 'marvel to me that 
anything tangible is squeezed out of them 
at all. 

Yet here are the facts. After clothing 
the rapscallions — if not in silk attire, at 
least in wool — with gaiters, when their poor 



MR. SCARRAVVEGS THIRD GROWL. 59 

dear calves feel chilly, and stout shoes and 
stockings and oversmocks when their poor 
dear bodies feel ditto, and mittens when they 
have chilbains, (this is really true : many 
a pair of mittens have I had served out) ; 
after filling their bellies with such food as 
few agricultural labourers ever look upon ; 
after warminof their cells and halls with hot 
air, tempered by a thermometer, as if they 
were stove-plants ; after giving them cod- 
liver oil, and wine and jelly when they're ill, 
or pretend to be, and a new suit of clothes if 
they spoil their own, and keeping their hair 
nice and short free gratis for nothing, into 
the baro^ain — after all these advantao^es 
(which cost money, mind you) we actually 
manage to economise upon them to this 
extent. 

The inmate of a borough gaol is calculated 
to cost the unfortunate par of Miss Maria an 
average of £20 per head over and above the 
value of his labour. The inmate of one of 
our convict prisons costs an average only of 
nine pounds per head over and above the 
value of his labour. What with his lying, 
his hypocrisy, his laziness, his sham con- 



6o MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 

sumption, and Miss Maria's nerves, I look 
upon that as a very wonderful result indeed ; 
and should like to shake hands all round 
ujDon the strength of it. 

I would quote figures for you — I've got 
'em all before me now — but then I recall the 
* little slip ' I made (bless me, I'm just like 
Tilgoe !) with reference to that bit of a 
schedule about the educational department. 
If I dared to show up for you all the results 
of Miss Maria's delicate susceptibilities — 
why, there, you'd bo having fits yourself on 
the door-mat, as she has when crossed ; and 
Lord knows, one who's up to those games in 
a small establishment is more than enough. 
I'll just say this much, however. Isn't it 
remarkable how glib these ex-convicts are in 
statistics ? How did they learn 'em ? Did 
they penetrate into the governor's oflice, 
open his great safe, and peruse his books '{ 
I do that, because it's my duty — and not a 
gay one neither — and so I see ropes that 
pull the machine, all bare and stringy — (oh, 
that awful schedule !) — which no convict or 
ex-convict can by any possibility see, unless 
he makes burglarious entrances into my own 



MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 6i 



sanctum or the governors, or else breaks 
into the Home Office itself. But he don't 
do that. It's easier to invent, and to hood- 
wink Miss Maria — may Heaven bless the 
little darlinof ! 

Mr. E. A. Bernays^ who's superintending 
engineerin Chatham dockyard — and apleasant 
gent, though he has got mathematics on the 
brain, which is his misfortune, not his fault — 
tells me that the convicts earn all round an 
average of eighteenpence a day, which is 
more than I should have thought probable. 
He says that there are circumstances inse- 
parable from the condition of prisoners which 
prevent a man doing so much as he might, 
even in the short hours assio^ned to labour. 
If a party goes out, say, and when it reaches 
its post finds that it has left a tool behind, 
it must either do without it for the time or 
all march back in a body to fetch it. One 
warder can't be in two places at once, and he 
can't detach a prisoner to go aAvay alone. 
Thus Mr. Bernays's estimate is as satisfactory 
as we can hope when he tells us (and if any 
man dares to question the statistics of Mr. 
Bernays, he had best look out, I can tell 



62 MR. SCARRAWEGS THIRD GROWL. 



liim !) that, s])ite of marching backwards and 
forwards twice a day, with other drawbacks, 
two convicts can be calculated roughly to do 
the work of one free man, on day-work ; and 
that three convicts will do the work of a free 
man on piecework. Of the able-bodied class, 
he says that three convicts are equal to two 
ordinary labourers ; whilst in the matter of 
light labour two convicts are equal to one 
free man. He bids us observe, also, that one 
great difficulty in dealing with convict labour 
is that men of all capacities have, during 
work hours, to be mixed together. But then, 
on the other hand, whilst a proportion are 
weak or imbecile, a considerable number of 
convicts are persons of superior intelligence ; 
men who, if coaxed into docihty, can be 
trained to anything, and taught to master a 
trade in an incredibly short time. Brick- 
layers, masons, carpenters, can be manufac- 
tured in three or four months ; weavers, 
bootmakers, tailors, in six or eight. Take a 
man like Benson now, the cunning of whose 
exploits at the Mansion House and in the 
Goncourt case have compelled your admira- 
tion. What could not that man do if he 



MR. SCARE AW EC'S THIRD GROWL. 63 

were willing ? At this minute he is book- 
binding at Portsmouth. Many a gent would 
like to have his volumes bound as well as are 
the books inTHIRD GROWL. 

healthy ; yet that point is not looked on as a 
disadvantage by the French, for in the midst 
of indiscipline, it adds a deterrent terror to 
the idea of transportation. Renovate Cyprus 
by means of convict labour; build airy 
barracks there ; then let it be occupied by 
troops, if you like. 

Phew ! There, I've done, and I'm glad 
I've said my say ; for it's eased my mind and 
occupied it too, when otherwise I should 
have been yawning over the fire. Now Mr. 
Ebenezer'll take up his thread, and you'll see 
the strange things that happened to him. 
To think that his good angel should have 
slept such a long sleep — dear heart alive ! 

">f ^rt ^ -Ji- ^k ■SIf 

Don't forget to speak up for an old chap, 
if I get into hot water over that schedule. I 
know you won't. Good-night. 

{Signed) J. Scarraweg, 
Chief-warder. 

P.S. — I hope I've not stamped too hard 
on anybody's corn. If I have, I hope he'll 
cut it, and not me. — J. S. 



PART III. . 

THE AVESGER SPEAKS. 




CHAPTEE I. 



LIBERTY. 




REE I Yes, I was free, after twelve 
years of bondage. As I and a 
few more were being driven to 
Hori-abridge to take the train for town, I 
looked backward wistfully — half sorry to de- 
part. Are we not all a little sorry to leave 
a home, however rough and squalid it may 
be ? When we have decided that such and 
such contingencies will take place — that cer- 
tain events must inevitably come to pass — is 
it not with a wrench that we discover we 
were wrong ? If you thoroughly accept an 
idea, it winds itself about your being, and 
becomes part and parcel with yourself, even 
though it may be terrible and harassing. 
I had quite convinced myself that I was 



76 LIBERTY. 

to die at Dartmoor ; that the world for me 
until my dying day was to consist of the 
gaunt barrack, with its many blinking win- 
dows ; the undulating, chameleon downs, 
bounded like the sea by a straight, far-off 
horizon : that the mustard-toned uniform was 
to be my attire till it was doffed in favour of 
the windingsheet. Yet here was I, trundling 
rapidly away through the soft September air, 
dressed in a neat suit of tweed, fashioned by 
prison hands, with a wideawake upon my 
head instead of the hideous bonnet. 

Though for several years I had been count- 
ing the days, yet when the moment came 
Avhich was to see me pass through the cordon 
of civil guards without an armed escort at 
my heels, I could scarcely realise the situa- 
tion — it appeared so wonderful. But it was 
a fact, nevertheless ; no longer a worshipped 
vision. The old, familiar quarr}^, where I 
had endured my bloody sweat, was to know 
me no more — I was passing it now as a 
stranger might — was whirled by, and it 
stretched not forth its arms to hold me. A 
party in the familiar uniform who were 
sweeping the road looked after us with a 



LIBERTY. jj 

dreary longing. A sudden dip hid them and 
the prison from our sight. Our faces were 
turned towards the world now — the busy, 
fretful, seething, cruel ocean, which had 
thrown me up high and dry upon the sharp 
and jagged rocks. 

But I was destined to slip back into the 
waters ; to return again into the world. And 
yet not so. Just as the cultured painter died 
when the doors of the gaol were closed on 
him, so in like manner was the Ebenezer 
dead who arrived eleven years ago at Dart- 
moor. This was quite another being who 
was emero^ingf from the tomb to that other 
one who had been consigned to it. Old 
Scarraweg, as we stood prepared to start, 
squeezed my hand with encouraging words, 
which awoke no answering flutter of gratitude 
in my breast : 

^ You're a mysterious party !' he grumbled. 
' We know nothing of your belongings ; for 
through all the years you've been here you've 
persisted in never receiving a visit or a letter. 
Have you friends to go to? How do you 
know that they Ve alive ? or are you going to 
apply to a Society V 



78 LIBERTY. 

' I have friends, never fear,' I answered, 
with assumed gaiety. ^ So that I shall not 
have to lean on any such broken reed.' 

Then, as we stood waiting for the vehicle 
which was to bear me thence, he told me to 
write to him if I got into a mess, and, bidding 
me not to backslide from my present hopeful 
state, waved a farewell, and disappeared 
under the archway. 

' Friends ! My hopeful state !' How 
whimsical it was that I should always be so 
misread ! My hopeful condition was one of 
concentrated hate — a thirst for vengfeance on 
those whom I considered, in my warped 
mind, to be responsible for my shattered life. 
My friends were those which I had made 
within the prison walls, and who were to 
introduce me to others cast in the same 
mould. 

'No, I would not backslide,' I said to 
myself, with a fierce sniff, as we drove along. 
When the crisis came which had riven my 
tortured soul, the only comforters who had 
stood near me were the devils who had whis- 
pered, ' Search !' To them I owed all my 
allegiance — I burned to possess the diploma 



LIBERTY. ' 79 

which should make me one of them. No, no I 
There was little fear of my backsliding. Had 
I not kept steadily to my resolve, with my 
eyes fixed upon the lurid light for the long 
weary years of the devil's noviciate ? Why, 
then, should I falter now ? 

In due course I was received at Millbank, 
sat for my photograph, underwent the careful 
inspection of the detectives, in order that 
they might know my face — received my 
license, and was free to wander where I 
would. I had three pounds in my pocket, 
which I had earned in prison, so that there 
was no immediate hurry as to ^ settling 
down.' Jaggs was not to meet me till the 
evening. I resolved, therefore, to have a 
good look at the people whose scourge I was 
destined to become before a,gain retiring for 
a short space into private life. For our plans 
had been carefully arranged in hospital, and 
they required a second disappearance on my 
part for awhile. 

One of the drawbacks to the grand scheme 
for establishing a well- baited trap for the 
snaring of gentlemen's gentlemen had been 
the necessity which I should be under of re- 



8o LIBERTY. 

porting myself once a month to the police. 
For all mv life, mind you ! Beingr a ^ lifer ' 
with a ticket, the monthly surveillance of the 
police was never to cease (unless I chose to 
expatriate myself), even if I lived to be a 
hundred ! This difficulty would have to be 
surmounted by crafty scheming. 

It was obvious to each and all three of us 
that if the proposed place of entertainment 
were kept by one who had perpetually to 
report himself at Scotland Yard, he would 
come to be under the inspection of the local 
policeman on his beat in Mayfair, who would 
meddle and interfere in the arrangements, 
and chatter of the secret to the cook. Gentle- 
men's gentlemen are sharp persons, and they 
would soon come to know that the ^ affable 
o'ent ' who so condescendino^lv courted their 
company was no other than a ticket-of-leave 
man. 

Now it was evident that o-entlemen's Qfentle- 
men, for their own sakes, would flee from the 
company of a ticket-of-leave man, however 
affable. The onlv chance of throwino* them off 
their o-uard and o-ainino* their confidence was 
to pose as a licensed victualler in a dilettante 



LIBERTY. 8i 

way — as an eccentric individual, with Kadical 
proclivities, and money at the bank, who 
liked good fellows, and wasn't proud ; and 
who, chancing to pitch his tent in a cosy 
corner of Mayfair, happened somehow to 
gather round him a clientele, of butlers and 
grooms of the chambers, who, as every- 
liody knows, are fascinating and polished 
men of the world. 

Nothing more easy than to set this cat 
swinging, provided the difficulty of surveil- 
lance were overcome. Spevins, Jaggs, and I 
discussed the important topic constantly, till 
I felt inclined, discouraged by its knottiness, 
to abandon the scheme — it seemed so utterly 
hopeless ; but Spevins's mind was set on it. 
It opened too gorgeous a vista in the future 
for the benefit of the brethren of his craft to 
be lightly abandoned, and so, little by little, 
as we talked it over in the ^ farm ' we crawled 
vout of the fog in this wise. 

We decided that when the last three months 
of my imprisonment should commence, I was 
to dechne to grow my hair. Prisoners have 
odd whimsies sometimes, and whether I 
*ehose to go out with long or short hair was a 

VOL. III. 49 



82 LIBERTY. 

matter which could only be decided by my 
own taste. I was to profess to have become 
accustomed to short hair, and to prefer it ; to 
point out that others beside convicts wear 
short hair : Kussians, Frenchmen sometimes, 
and j)ersons recovering from fever. Thus my 
last photograph would be taken with a 
smooth face and a close crop ; in the same 
guise I should pass under the eyes of the de- 
tectives ; with the same peculiarity I should 
report myself at Scotland Yard as having 
taken lodgings in the Borough, and hint at 
a possible intention of leaving the country. 

Having so reported myself, I was really to 
take lodgings in the Borough, and live there 
for a week or two, still close- cropped ; after 
which I was to be seen on board the Baron 
Osy, bound for Antwerp, and after that to 
report myself no more. The authorities 
would take it for granted that I was gone 
to reside abroad. But I was not to go 
abroad. I was to lie perdu in some hidden 
slum, which the experience of Spevins would 
suggest, for say six months or so, after which, 
with luxuriant hair and beard, I was to bloom 
out into the dilettante licensed victualler, with 



LIBERTY. 83 

persuasive manners and a heart of stone, a 
stranger to England and Mayfair^ with no 
cause to know anything of the poHce. 

The more we turned this plan over the 
more likely it seemed to achieve success. 
Ticket-of-leave men are constantly retiring 
abroad, and so omitting to report themselves. 
They are lost to sight, and there is an end of 
them. The peculiar circumstances of my 
ov/n case, combined with my angelic be- 
haviour after a new leaf had been turned, had 
induced the authorities to look into the affair 
before the usual time. It was not to be sup- 
posed, therefore, that I was likely again to 
offend against the law. I had nothing in 
common with habitual criminals, since my 
crime had been one of impulse. Being a 
^ lifer' under perpetual surveillance, the very 
wisest course I could pursue would be to turn 
my back on the white cliffs for ever. Hence 
my vanishing would awaken no surprise in 
Scotland Yard. Neither would the police be 
likely to put a finger on me in the neighbour- 
hood where I was really to abide. Detectives 
have little business within the sacred pre- 
cincts of Mayfair, unless specially summoned 

49—2 



84 LIBERTY. 

thither by some noble lord ; and in no case 
would they expect to find a gaol-bird perch- 
ing in that holy of holies. Say a burglary is 
committed in Berkeley Square. Detectives 
arrive and make notes ; then they consult the 
black register, and consider who in the long 
list is most likely to have done the job ; and 
having made up their minds on that point, 
seek the delinquent out in one or other of the 
thieves' quarters, where such gentry hang up 
their hats. Thus I, the invisible captain of 
the gang, would be safe. If one or two of 
the rank and file were captured now and then 
it would not signify ; the ranks would close 
up and all would go on as before. So Spevins 
put the matter, and both Jaggs and I were 
fain to admit that it was ingenious. But to 
insure my invisibility in the future I must lie 
close and quiet for a few months ; must un- 
dergo a short chrysalishood in some shy back - 
street, where poor people live who are visited 
now and again by clergymen, not as yet by gen- 
tlemen in blue. Spevins was to select a con- 
venient spot in the purlieus of Whitechapel 
perhaps, or the unctuous alleys by the riverside. 
Such was to be the programme, and on 



LIBERTY. 85 

this, the first day of liberty, I deemed it per- 
missible to make of it a red-letter day, and to 
enjoy myself preparatory to disappearance, in 
a loose and careless fashion. 

I was so dazed and dizzy by reason of the 
rattle and hum, that staid pedestrians looked 
round with surprise upon the wanderer. They 
beheld a robust man in garments out of date, 
who peered into the faces of one and of 
another with a wild persistency ; who walked 
as in a dream ; starting from time to time, 
nodding to timeworn buildings — familiar out- 
lines which he had thought never to see again; 
who stopped at intervals and drank in deep 
draughts of the murky air as though in it were 
renewed some savour forgotten years ago. 

I know not how long I wandered, or in 
what direction. At one moment I was 
flooded with a joy which, but for stern dis- 
cipline, would have found vent in shrieks and 
capers, as now and again I stared down and 
felt my garments and wondered to miss the 
badge and broad arrows on my arm, emblems 
of a serfdom which has hardened other hearts 
than mine. With wayward feet I turned 
down gloomy byways, and after a step or two 



86 LIBERTY. 

turned back again, glancing over my shoulder 
to see if I were followed,half expecting, though 
I knew it would not be so, to perceive a civil 
guard in long overcoat with rifle and fixed 
bayonet standing at a corner watching me. No, 
there were none watching my vagaries, though 
many, on their own business intent, looked 
idly at my cropped head and then passed 
onward. Then a new sense of desolation 
seized me — of solitude more gruesome even 
than that of Dartmoor. Here people bumped 
against me if I loitered, unaccustomed as I 
was to move except by word of command. 
They seemed to push the wavering waif from 
their path as one who is idle, and purposeless, 
and deserves to be run over. The traffic and 
hurry and bustle made my head spin, and the 
indiflerence with which I was bandied to and 
fro caused my sinews to vibrate, my blood to 
tingle in an access of anger. 

Is it thus you treat the outcast who has 
returned again % I thought, as 1 ground my 
teeth. A fresh outrage this ! In a moment 
when he knew not what he did lie was guilty 
of an accident for which you slew him — piti- 
less ones ! For you did slay him more surely 



LIBERTY. S7 

than by the hangman's rope. His soul and 
body dead, you have set his phantom free ; 
you permit it to hover whither the winds 
may drive it, among the dwelhngs of the 
Hving, taking no heed, save to brush away 
what appears an importunate mist. The 
phantom of the man who fell, and for whom 
you had no bowels of mercy till it was too 
late, is among ye once again, and ye shall rue 
the day when you relented. 'Tis but a misty 
veil — a cloud-wreath, if you will — which a 
puff of breeze should dissipate ; yet shall it 
cling as closely as a cerecloth. The misty 
veil shall embrace your faces, cold and clammy 
like the grave-clothes of a corpse. Ye shall 
try to tear it aside, in vain. Impalpable and 
deadly, it shall do its work, hugging your 
skins like Medea's shirt of fire. 

Then my anger would subside, for there 
was something withering about this busy 
tempest of indifference, which swept along 
the street so sublimely heedless of my wrath. 
In my loneliness I longed for the moor again, 
where at least it was the interest of many to 
know that I existed and to watch what I 
did. Though a mere number — Y 122 — there 



88 LIBERTY. 

I was an entity. It was people's business to^ 
know that I existed, and to scrutinise me 
half a dozen times a day ; to search my 
pocket, cut my hair, see that my grue] was of 
proper quality, my garments free from holes. 
If I tried to mutilate myself the whole prison 
would be agog ; reports be sent flying to White- 
hall. Here it mattered to none what should be- 
come of me. If I, distressed and bewildered by 
unaccustomed bustle, w^ere swept under crush- 
ing cartwheels, who would care ? I should 
be shunted out of the way like a discoloured 
leaf, and the stream would roll on without a 
change. If I cried out that I was homeless 
and starving, nobody would take notice. In 
prison I had but to ring my bell and com- 
plain that my bread was underweight, for it 
to be instantly weighed and my grievance 
righted. This heedless throng denied all to 
the wanderer, even the poor solace of com- 
plaint. Whither should I bend my steps ?. 
I began to grow weary. What was this 
street which appeared to be familiar ? A 
red pillar-box at a corner. A shop 
where newspapers were sold. Something 
within, which had been slumbering for years, 



LIBERTY. 89 

gave so great a leap as to overset my e(iuili- 
brium — so great a bound that I staggered 
and clung to the pillar-box for support. 
How strange that my wayward feet should 
have led me hither ! Was this done design- 
edly by Fate, as a lesson, a hint, a warning 
— what % This was the very spot where I 
used to loiter whilst waiting for my wife ; 
the spot where, peering out of the Black 
Maria, I had last beheld my darling — my 
golden-haired little one, for whose sake I had 
sacrificed my name. How vividly the scene 
came back to me. Her mother standing erect 
and careless, my child with tears of grief on 
her sweet face ! What had happened to 
those two since then '? Since the devils 
claimed me as their own, I had dreamed less 
and less of Mildred. The aveno^er had nouo^ht 
to do w^ith her ; the gulf was broader, even 
more wide now than that awful night had made 
it. Betwixt her and me lay more than an 
ocean. She was as far from the man with 
the stone within his breast, as though already 
she occupied her place among the stars. 

And yet this was a singular coincidence. 
Why should I have been brought to this one 



90 LIBERTY. 

spot in all the mazy immensity of London ? 
I would like to have stooped to kiss the 
place where she had stood. Was it possible 
that . . . No ! it was not. Want of food 
was making the wanderer light-headed. 
Mildred was in good health, and happy, and 
had long since forgotten the dead. That was 
well. Feeling sick and faint — unhinged — I 
entered a publichouse and asked for a glass 
of ale. The barmaid stared at me and went 
to consult her master. Presently he came 
too, and stared. Did they see I was a con- 
vict» and did they consider that my shadow 
polluted their threshold ? No. The publican 
merely said tha,t he declined to serve me, 
because it was evident I was half-seas over — 
drunk ! I whose lips no fermented liquor 
had touched for twelve years. Drunk ! The 
sight of that public bar filled me with a horror 
of what passed the last time that I had stood 
in one. Pewter pots, glittering and heavy. 
With a moan I slunk out asfain and went 
upon my way. Where was the steadfastness 
of purpose Avhich had upheld me all these 
years ? What were the devils thinking of 
him who aspired to join their cohorts ? This 



LIBERTY, 91 

would not do ; I must pull myself together. 
More calmly I strode on and on, and by- 
and-by became master of my emotion. 

It was the return into the whirl which had 
so upset the outcast. In a few days he would 
grow accustomed to the turmoil, and be him- 
self again. Certainly, it was most important 
that I should enter on my new life by gradual 
gradations. I felt glad that it would be 
necessary for me to lie perdu for a time. By 
night I would prowl about for exercise, when 
the street was deserted and the bustle hushed, 
and so I should develop, like an expanding 
flower, into the dilettante victualler. Sup- 
posing that I had been asked to play the 
role at once, I felt that inevitably I should 
break down. The sight of a passing police- 
man on his beat would fill me with apprehen- 
sion. I should be lamentably deficient in 
brilliant repartee, wherewith to parry the 
quips of witty butlers. There was another 
reason, too — the existence of which broke 
upon me little by little — why it would be well 
for me to vanish until I could reappear trans- 
formed. I was amazed at the number of old 
faces that I saw. Not old faces belonging to 



92 LIBERTY. 

friends of days gone by, but faces of men 
whom I had known at Pentonville or Dart- 
moor. I saw horsekeepers, beggars, figures 
arrayed like betting-men, who tipped me a sly 
wink as I slouched past, and I could not 
help reflecting what a hard thing it must be 
for ' gentlemen lags' to have this extra pitfall 
prepared by a benignant Government for their 
unstable feet. Another, and hitherto un- 
noticed result this, of the present method of 
herding prisoners indiscriminately together. 
The gentleman lag has been compelled to 
associate throughout his term with pick- 
pockets and garotters. He comes out, and 
his friends obtain for him a fresh chance. 
But as he moves about the thoroughfares of 
London he comes upon his old allies. He is 
apparently in fine feather, and they are not. 
He has found friends and a good place, they 
have no better buoy than a Prisoners' Aid 
Society. Is it likely that they will allow 
him to give them the cold shoulder. No, 
indeed ! Thev will dos: his steps, and clinsf 
to him, and clasp him to their bosoms, and 
point him out for an ex-felon, unless he 
shows a civil front. 



LIBERTY. 93 

Do you not remember the story of the 
Comte de Saint Helene, who, an escaped 
felon, assumed the identity of another man, 
grew high in court favour, commanded a 
regiment, and led a blameless life ; but came 
to be betrayed at last by a fellow convict in 
whose schemes he had refused to participate ? 
I saw many men with whom I had been on 
speaking terms at Dartmoor. Where did 
they live, these habitual depredators ? In 
the thieves' quarters, of course. Short's 
Gardens ; the labyrinths of Drury Lane ; 
the dens of the New Cut. Those winks and 
friendly nods boded no good to our scheme. 
If these fellow gaol-birds were to track me 
into the holy of holies and insist upon 
^keeping company,' I, the decoy, and the 
band I was to lead, might whistle for our 
prey. The police would be down upon us in 
a twinkling. Sir Edmund Henderson would 
smile his saddened smile, in that his acumen 
had unveiled a new facet in the vice of the 
metropolis, and that he was depressed, not 
surprised, by his discovery. It was not only 
police surveillance which it would be my 
business to outwit, but the more dangerous 



94 LIBERTY. 

watchfulness of 'pals/ Where had Spevins 
settled that I was to live whilst lying 'perdu ? 
It must be somewhere altogether removed 
from the haunts of thieves — some place 
where he and the members of the new band 
might call upon me without fear of detec- 
tion. The more I thought this over, the 
more imperative it seemed to me that my 
comrades should cultivate prudence and 
weigh the pros and cons of so important a 
point in our debut. But while I pondered 
(making the circuit of quiet squares) a church 
clock clanged out the hour, and I stepped 
out at a brisker pace, for darkness was 
closing in, and I had appointed to meet Jaggs 
upon the Surrey side. 

I found that gentleman in splendid feather. 
Outside a coffee-shop in the Westminster 
Bridge Boad^ he stood awaiting my arrival 
the admiration of all the shop-girls in the 
neighbourhood, for whose behoof he turned 
round and round, whilst pretending to be 
enofrossed with a haberdasher's show in order 
to display the beauties of his back. Though 
no longer in his first youth, the 'man of 
many laggings ' was presentable enough 



LIBERTY. 95 

when skilfully made up. Skilley, combined 
with bread- and- water, had dashed the bloom 
from the rose, but the rose preserves its 
sweetness in spite of a little battering ; 
some indeed consider that its scent may be 
improved thereby. Be that as it may, there 
was no room for doubt that out of prison 
Jaggs was a dazzling creature, whose artless 
ways threw women off their guard. He was 
fitted by nature and by art for conquest — 
armed for the purpose cap-a-]pie. His cheeks 
were still hollow and pallid and seamy ; there 
was no help for that, as he disdained cos- 
metics ; but his hair waved with bushy 
luxuriance, all the thicker for being kept 
down so long. He showed a jDredilection 
for ornament — a liking for jewellery and 
colour which was almost oriental. He wore 
a fashionable low-collared shirt vfith bright 
green stripes, a loose red necktie clasped by 
a be-je welled ring, faultless pantaloons, a 
tight frock-coat with a great deal of braid 
on it, over which peeped the tenderest 
soupcon of white waistcoat — most graceful 
homage to the autumn warmth. 

Indeed, Jaggs was overwhelmingly genteel 



96 LIBERTY. 

in manner as well as get-up ; but I detected 
a distinct change in him (and who should 
know the ins and outs of the scoundrel so 
well as I ?) since he submitted himself to the 
tutelage of Spevins. The guileless babe had 
found the nurse of whose non-existence he 
had complained, the guardian who was to 
defend him against temptation. Little by 
little he had dropped his airs of patronage, 
had fallen completely under the burglars 
sway, had come to look on him as his 
director ; and, now that he was free, he was 
more airy and infantine than ever, gambolling 
as it were in the sunshine, secure in the vigi- 
lance of his ally. To look at him now you 
would never have supposed the graceful 
creature capable of associating with the 
vulgar wield er of a jemmy. The shiniest of 
hats, the daintiest of patent-leather shoes and 
silk stockings, the neatest of peau de Suede 
gloves, were the culminating glories of an 
ensemble which, looming suddenly upon the 
commonplace of the Westminster Bridge 
Hoad, was well calculated to ravish the 
female heart. Consequently the waitresses 
of a coflfee-shop fluttered to us with one 



LIBERTY. 97 

accord, in spite of my peculiar aspect and ill- 
cut clothes, and brushed with vigour at 
antique mustard-stains — maps upon the 
tablecloth — as they chirpingly inquired our 
pleasure. 

Jaggs took the initiative with a superior 
nonchalance which I was not prepared to 
combat. It was plain that I was the country 
cousin and he the London swell. Was not the 
golden pince-nez with which he masked his 
injured eyes (red and bleared through over- 
use of lime) the very crowning attribute of a 
real toff? The genuine article and no mis- 
take — twenty-two carat — no relation to the 
base but glittering metal which hails from 
the ateliers of Brummagem. 

He ordered bacon and eggs for two, and a 
brace of teas, with a haughty air of scornful 
tolerance which clamped the spirits of the 
waitresses, who fairly collapsed when, upon 
their depositing the dish upon the table, he 
turned its contents over with a fork and 
begged that every door and window might 
instantly be closed. 

' Your eggs have got chickens in 'em, and 
wi]l fly away,' he remarked with biting irony ; 

VOL. III. "d^ 



98 LIBERTY. 

* while as for your rashers — mind the draught, 
do — they're so thin they'll be blown off the 
plate !' 

The damsels were still further harrowed 
by the manners of the real swell ; for this 
particular example of the genus disdained to 
touch their humble forks and knives with his 
aristocratic skin — at any rate he forebore to 
take off his gloves ; and what reason could 
he possibly have for that except supreme 
gentility % 

The gentlemanly Jaggs had been released 
from duress a few weeks before me, and was 
no longer affected by the unaccustomed 
luxury of ordinary knives and forks and food 
not served up in tins. With me it was 
otherwise. The sight of that brownish 
rasher with a grimy bloated egg sitting on 
its chest, which ^gg had burst in the process 
of cooking and was shapeless, touched me 
more nearly than aught I had yet seen, 
cooing as it did of liberty. The man without 
a heart, who could look on his busthng fellow- 
men w^ith no feelino' but one of vensfeance 
longing to be gratified, was moved to tears 
by the aspect of that uncomely feast ; and if 



LTBERTY. 99 

his superior companion had not admonished 
him with kicks upon the shins, it is possible 
that he might have given way and sobbed 
outriofht. 

- He did nothing so indecorous, however. A 
momentary spasm, and he was himself again, 
and could listen calmly to Jaggs's whispered 
conversation. A kind gentleman, the wait- 
resses decided, to make so free and be so 
familiar with that queer homely-looking 
fellow in the short hair. 

He was wonderfully condescending truly, 
and went through his paces for the benefit of 
the admiring damsels in a way which made 
me smile ; but at the same time he agreed 
with my views, and saw as I did that it was 
of the first importance to our scheme that I 
should avoid collision with old pals. Spevins, 
he said, had arranged a temporary shakedown 
for me with some friends in Whitechapel. 
Yet would he take on himself the responsi- 
bility of changing the programme. We would 
sally out forthwith and seek lodgings in the 
Borough as originally arranged ; his com- 
pany might be necessary for me, as my 
appearance was rather curious. But my 

50—2 



TOO LIBERTY. 

fashionable friend would put that all right, 
and then we would separate. To-morrow 
we mi^^ht meet at Scotland Yard, as if by 
accident ; then I could throw out the first 
hint about going abroad, and report my 
temporary address, whilst he went up to 
claim some property of which a spiteful 
country had taken possession when it chose, 
in its preposterous ill-nature, to shut him up. 

We met there as prearranged ; and it was 
lucky we did so, or I should have gone 
w^andering round for ever, feeling shy of 
openly avowing myself a convict. When I 
appeared under the archway he gave a stage- 
start, and advanced with voluble greetings, 
holding out both hands which on this occa- 
sion were cased in yellow kid, and proceeded 
to do the honours of the place, in nowise 
abashed or dismayed by the presence of the 
gentlemen in blue who thronged each passage 
and peered over every blind. 

' Shouldn't I like to blow up the lot with dy- 
namite, like Guy Fawkes !' whispered Jaggs, 
as he led me to a side office wherein sat an 
officer behind an enormous ledger. Then, in 
the most engaging manner, he presented me 



LIBERTY. loi 

to the official. ' Mr. Rundle — Mr. Ander- 
son ; Mr. Anderson — Mr. Rundle — charming 
fellows both — know each other. Never met 
before ? Dear me ! How^ odd — how very 
remarkably odd !' 

The policemen on duty tittered, while Mr. 
Bundle looked me sternly up and down. 

' Jagfofs was a queer bloke — that he w^as,' 

OO J. ' 

the understrappers murmured. ^ A real rum 
un — w^asn't his brass splendid ? He wouldn't 
be frightened even in presence of the Lord 
Mayor — not he ! Would probably hold out 
a hand, and drawl out, '' How do !" — or poke 
him in the ribs, or even slap him upon his 
auo^ist bow- window.' 

Mr. Rundle was suspicious of my predilec- 
tion for the crop, and said so as he surveyed 
me through his spectacles. 

' 'Tain't natural,' he observed shortly. 
' The first thing convicts think of is their 
hair ; and they're always bothering to be 
allowed to grow it months and months 
before the time, I know. However, it's 
your own look-out of course. But no tricks, 
mind, or you'll lose your license and be sent 
back to where you came from. Going abroad. 



102 LIBERTY. 

eh ? A. wise step, as things are at present 
managed. Keep you from bad companions. 
Where did you pick up that man ? Oh ! here 
in the yard ! Bad companion — couldn't be 
worse. Cut him !' 

Outside the door Jaofo-s was waiting* for 
me. 

' As a stransrer who doesn't know the 
place — it really is too odd a notion ! — I'd 
advise you to come upstairs with us. Some 
day you may find it necessary to know where 
to call. Better learn all the rigs, hadn't he, 
bobby ? Hasn't he got anything here of his 
own ? Nabbed at Carlisle, was he ? Well — 
come on. Bless you, the obliging official 
won't mind — will you, bobby V 

Jaggs's festive attire and yellow kids were 
not without their effect even on the callous 
nature of the gentleman in blue. Fine 
feathers do indeed make fine birds ; and this 
bird was entertaininsf as well as o-av of 
plumage ; so the official elected to be 
benignant. 

Arrived on the first floor, we were ushered 
by two constables through an anteroom, 
hung round with flashy ladies' clothes and 



LIBERTY. lo: 



boots, and sealskin cloaks all full of moth — 
an apartment which looked haggard and 
untidy, up-all-nightish, like those where 
* supers ' dress in theatres, with a large 
chamber beyond like a bazaar. I never saw 
so incongruous a variety- of articles as were 
assembled here, and stood looking about, be- 
wildered. There were one or two mattresses, 
and portmanteaus and umbrellas by the 
score ; elegant dressing-bags with silver 
fittings ; morocco desks, surmounted by 
ormolu monograms ; hat-boxes, bonnet-boxes, 
bundles of rugs, bunches of keys, fans, books 
done up in straps for travelling; even 
luncheon-baskets and carriage-lamps. And all 
these things belonged to convicts now under 
sentence ! How many, then, must have 
been captured just as they were making off, 
starting by a night express perchance, or 
about to step on board a boat ; almost out of 
danger, poor wretches ! All the articles were 
neatly labelled, piled in racks from floor to 
ceiling, like winebottles in a bin. Then there 
were stuffed birds, photograph-books, every 
conceivable thing that a man or w^oman could 
by any possibility have been carrying at the 



I04 LIBERTY. 

time he or she was taken. The clothes worn 
by criminals are confiscated, and new suits 
provided by the state ; but portable effects 
are drafted to Scotland Yard, where they may 
be claimed by the convict on his release. 

* Is the whole house stacked like this ?' I 
asked in surprise, thinking how queer it 
would be if burg^lars were to break into it, 
for a change, and steal their fellow-scoundrels' 
property. 

' No,' a policeman answered, who was 
searching for Jaggs's effects; 'upstairs is the 
Black Museum, where the objects are kept that 
have been used as evidence in murders — a 
cheerful lot of playthings. There's a baby's 
bottle there containing laudanum and milk, 
dozens of bloody razors, pistols, jemmies — 
instruments you gentry know more about, I 
daresay, than I do. Drat those things of 
yours, Mr. Jaggs ! I can't make out wher- 
ever they've been stored. What was it — a 
dressing-case, you say, in polished walnut ? 
You'd better call again.' 

But Jaggs loftily refused to be put off in 
that way ; so long as he was free, the bobby 
would be 2'ood enouoii to remember that he 



LIBERTY. 105 

was a gentleman. His time was too precious, 
he declared, to be sjDent in dancing- 
attendance upon the police. ' You're paid to 
do your work, I suppose, and well too, or else 
vou'd strike. I can't encourasre laziness ; it's 
against my principles — so I don't budge 
from here till I get my things. Mr. 
Anderson is a stranger here — I can't really 
get over the funniness of that. Show us 
the safe where all the gold watches and 
chains are. How many might there be 
now '?' 

My companion looked persuasively innocent,.- 
but the policeman shook his head, and closed 
one eye with deliberation. ' What, again 1' 
he inquired, grinning. ' You've a watch and 
chain among 'em, I suppose. The best of 
the lot, in course. Oh yes, in course 
you have ! WeVe good cause to remem- 
ber the dance you once led us, Mr. 
Jaggs.' 

The artless one was flattered to discover 
that the barbs which he had flungf" had stuck. 
It is encouraging to find your deeds of 
prowess treasured in the memory of your 
natural foe. Jumping up on to a port- 



3o6 LIBERTY. 

manteau and complacently examining his 
stockings as he swung his legs, he observed, 
turning to me : ^ Now look at this fellow ! 
He dares to take aAvay my character in order 
to screen himself. It's the way of the 
■world. The virtuous go to the wall, and the 
wicked triumph ; and they call these persons 
officers of justice ! What does he refer to ? 
Only a little mistake they made here once, 
and tried to make me the sufferer. But 
though when sent to quod I'm as quiet as 
a lamb, I'm not to be tryannised over or put 
upon — when out.' 

* You're wonderful chaps for insisting on 
your rights, you convicts,' agreed the police- 
man. 

' Of course we are ; but don't you call me 
a convict Avhen I'm in mufti. This is how it 
happened. Somewhere about my first or 
second stretch it was, as far as I recollect ; 
and a great shame too, for I was just off to 
Paris on a spree, and they might have 
arrested me quite as well when I came back. 
But they had an eye to the swag, these 
officers of justice, for I w^as togged up first- 
rate for the occasion. Kicksies, built hanky- 



LIBERTY. 107 

panky to drop down over the trotters, with 
double fakement down the sides ; and a 
downy upper benjamin, cut in saucy style — 
slap — a brand-new suit from the first London 
tailor, I regret to tell you — for my cruel 
country stole it. And then I happened to be 
figged out in lots of jewellery. Diamond 
studs^ rings, watch and chain, and a breast- 
pin set with sapphires. All of the best, upon 
my honour ' 

' Sham !' muttered the unbelieving and 
laconic constable. 

* Real. Go on 1' retorted Jaggs with 
indignation, for this was touching him 
upon his weakest point ' Do you think 
I'd not be ashamed to be seen wdth sham 
jewellery? Well, when I came out I 
claimed the lot^ of course, and they 
couldn't find it — swore the things were 
not worth keeping, and had been thrown 
away ; and wanted to put me off like that. 
But I knew better — the careless vagabonds ! 
Didn't I know they'd waited to take me till 
I was togged out, in order that they 
might rob me of my things — the black- 
guards !' 



io8 LIBERTY. 

^ Made us furnish vou with a full set, all 
complete, diamonds and sapphires and all,' 
laughed the constable, with a kind of 
admiration. 'You had us that time, you 
scamp ! but since then we've been more care- 
ful, and keep everything, however useless. 
Yes ; 3^ou did sell us neatly, I confess. But 
never no more. Look at that old gridiron 
up there : what's it worth ? nothing. It's 
wore out, and would faJl to pieces if you put 
it on the fire. Do you suppose the owner of 
that would take a new one if we offered it ? 
certainly not. He'll have that identical 
article when he comes out, or there'll be as 
much rumpus as if the place was burning. 
You are a peculiar breed, you are. Come ! 
here's your dressinof-case at last. Siofn the 
receipt now, and be off, or you'll be fingering 
something of somebody else's, and getting us 
into more trouble.' 

Arrived in the yard below. Jaggs made an 
elaborate display of taking an affectionate 
leave of me for ever^ and of v/ishing me, in a 
voice broken by emotion, a prosperous career. 
Then he hailed a hansom, kissed his 
yellow kids to Mr, Rundle, who out of his 



LIBERTY. 109 

den was watching his proceedings with a 
frown, and rattled off. 

The officer emerged, as I was moving 
away, to bestow a parting caution. ' Go 
abroad,' he said, ' by all means, if you can 
command money or influence. It's the wisest 
move. I only wish we could send 'em all 
abroad, before they're tempted, and come in 
for a second sentence. Behave well now, 
and let us know before you start ; and mean- 
while avoid such scamps as that one who's 
just gone.' 

I turned slowly towards the Borough. 
By reversing the original decree, the authori- 
ties had shown that they considered me 
hardly treated ; and yet they supposed that 
I would tamely put up with their injustice. 
Go abroad, forsooth! No; I longed to be at 
work. It was tiresome to have to wait ; 
but it was for the best. In six months or so 
Ave would begin. What were six months to 
a man who for years had curbed his passions 
for a settled and deliberate purpose ; w^ho 
had played his arduous part without once 
blenching or allowing an eyelid to quiver ? 
But as we near our goal we grow impatient. 



no LIBERTY. 



A fortnight en evidence. Then a few 
months concealed ; and then I would enter 
on the office to which I was predoomed b}^ 



circumstance. 







■■^^,^^£^^'^-^ 




CHAPTEK II. 




RETIREMENT. 

HE fortnight passed, and I decamped. 
My modest lodging had been on a 
first floor, over a wholesale boot- 
shop ; and, laying myself out for observation 
on the score of eccentricity; I had made it my 
habit to sit on the tiny balcony with a glass 
balanced on my knee^ snipping my short hair 
with a pair of scissors. The people opposite 
watched me ; the policeman on his stately 
march turned to stare at me ; the little boys 
ceased their eternal whistling for a moment 
to whoop and jeer at me. I was supposed by 
all to be a lunatic, let out too soon ; until the 
constable, conversing with the slavey as she 



112 RETIREMENT. 



waited for her lia'porth of milk, whispered 
the truth. A felon out on license ! Both 
slavey and landlord breathed more freely 
when I placed my small belongings in a cab, 
and ordered the driver to speed quickly to 
the docks. 

On the map of London there is a tiny dis- 
trict — between Tower Hill and Wapping — 
which may be covered by the little finger-tip. 
In years now happily gone by it was a species 
of Alsatia — a safe refuge for the scum of the 
earth, into which no emissaries of the law 
dared venture. Even now it is a festering 
labyrinth of hideous dens where degraded 
beings herd like beasts, forlorn and neglected 
by all save a handful of poor priests — too 
cowed by the scourge of penury to be dan- 
o^erous, too deeply sunk in the slough of 
misery to do aught but endure and die. 
There is a degree of wretchedness beyond 
that which goads a man to theft. He sees 
women and children dying of sheer starva- 
tion to the right and left, and comes by some 
strange method of induction to consider it a 
natural ending. Such men become dogged 
and silent, and accept their fate, burrowing 



RETIREMENT. ii^ 



away into the extremest crevice of their holes 
to hide their misery, if it may be, even from 
the h'ght of day. The pohce interfere httle 
with this colony, for the thief-class shuns its 
neio^hbourhood. It is not cheerful to see 
those about you pining slowly into shadows ; 
to hear nothing but groans ; to be awakened 
up of nights by the throat-rattle of the mori- 
bund. The professional thief prefers the 
comfort and gay companionship of penny 
lodofinof-houses in streets where a cry of 
* Rouse !' will, in a moment of danger, bring 
dozens of mates to his rescue. So the deni- 
zens of the slums round Tower Hill are left 
to their sorrows and their small knot of 
ghostly comforters, too deeply afflicted to 
take arms against the sea of troubles ; too 
crushed to make a raid upon the rich. 

The more weakly of these people live 
(such living !) by making sacks for the docks 
hard by, earning the large sum of sevenpence 
for the sewing of five-and-twenty sacks — 
about twelve hours of the hardest labour. 
The strong men — for the most part Irish — 
get employment when they can as dock 
labourers : but their calling: is as overstocked 

VOL. III. 5i 



114 RETIREMENT. 



as are the liberal professions. Once 'down/ 
other hands step into their places, and con- 
valescence brings a hopeless struggle after 
work that exists not — a tussle which breaks 
down their returning health — grinds them 
with merciful speed into their graves. 

In this delectable neighbourhood Spevins 
decided that I should conceal myself. ' First 
chop !' he said, as I met him by appointment 
in Wapping High Street, and he gave my 
hand a friendly shake. ' It's first chop for a 
chap as 'as to lie quiet for a bit ; you'll be 
safer there from any worriting than at the 
Antipodes. If the priests bother, you've 
only got to say that you're a Protestant, or 
a Bapty, or a Mahometan, or some such 
thing, and they'll leave you alone. I wont 
say as it's a jovial place — wuss a jolly sight, 
I will confess, than that hotel we've come 
from. But there are some nigger serenaders 
that live there, real cheerful chaps who'll 
keep up yer sperits, and besides, I'll be down 
here as often as is prudent, so you shan't 
mope.' 

Spevins, like Jaggs, had burst into the 
butterfly form ; but the glory of the former 



RE TIRE ME NT. 1 1 5 



was of the less dazzling kind. He affected 
tight corduroys, a velvet jacket with huge 
baggy pockets and mother-of-pearl buttons, 
and a furry cap set jauntily on the side of a 
head which streamed with hair-oil. His 
appearance suggested that of a gamekeeper 
out of place ; or of one Avhose mother was a 
dairymaid, whose father was a London horse- 
coper. He was in immense good humour, 
and rattled away as we walked along, looking 
up at me now and again with dancing beady 
eyes, and that wonderful smile of his which 
was an atonement for many peccadilloes. 
Everything was going on first rate, he said. 
His pals were charmed with the great idea, 
and had already spotted a place which would 
be exactly suitable for the house of entertain- 
ment. The whole thing was as plain as the 
nose on your face. A bargain had already 
been struck as to the foundation of a firm, 
and the relative proportion of shares. The 
friend of whom he had spoken to me was to 
advance the money — the friend who like him 
had ' taken the odds' — had cut the pack and 
turned up trumps, and had then retired on the 
proceeds of tw^enty years of villainy and un- 

51—2 



ii6 RETIREMENT. 



chequered luck into the respectabihty of a 
country mansion. This friend had objected 
at first, declaring that when he was made 
J. P. he had blotted away the past ; but upon 
being pressed and twitted with deserting an 
old but less fortunate pal, had given way 
at last, remarking that after all there was 
no reason against his taking a public-house. 
If baronets may make fortunes out of beer 
without a blush, why should not a country 
gentleman take a share in the profit of its 
sale ? So the sinews of war were handy, the 
centre of operations decided on ; it remained 
only for me to learn my part. A few months 
of retreat, and T was to arrive on the scene 
of action — a large and respectable-looking 
house at the corner of a mews, and of a 
modest thoroughfare which communicated 
with Curzon Street, Hertford Street, and 
Park Lane by a series of convenient turnings. 
The very thing. I was to be lavish in the way 
of decorations, and see that details were car- 
ried out according to my artistic instincts. 
Would my taste suggest anything particular, 
which was novel and slap-up ? We had 
already discussed all that, and my mind 



RETIREMENT. 117 



was pretty clear upon the subject. The bar 
was to be decorated after the manner of a 
Parisian cafe, with mirrors and wreaths of 
flowers. There was to be a separate entrance 
and a separate sitting-room for butlers and 
grooms of the chamber, which was to be done 
up in chaste and retiring colours ; while the 
footmen's room would be more lively; decorated 
with delicate tones of red and green, such as 
should act cheerfully upon their less-cultured 
intellects, and dispose their tongues to chatter. 
I was, in my own person, too, to resume the 
artist in an amateur sort of way ; to produce 
sketches and invite the criticisms of those 
butlers whose masters were aesthetic — to chat 
with them of Cimabue, and wrangle witii 
them upon questions of art — in course of 
time was to invite myself to view their 
masters' mansions when Hhe family' had 
gone out to dinner. 

Spevins was enraptured at the prospect ! 
Why, in this w^ay I could draw plans for 
him ; could observe any peculiarities of bolt, 
or bar, or window-sash ; and, in the interests 
of art, would turn my attention to what was 
most valuable, and note precisely where it 



ii8 RETIREMENT. 



was kept. How sj^lendid ! What a sparkling 
future was dav/ning for us all 1 The position 
of the trap was as convenient as possible. 
Decorate it how I would, it was bound to be a 
servants' house of call, into which gentlemen 
would never drift ; for did not its better-half 
look down a by-street, while the other was 
in a mews, retired from the stream of traffic ? 
As we talked, the eyes of Spevins sparkled 
with admiration. ^ You are an awful clever 
bloke/ he admitted with a humility strangely 
mixed with patronage ; ' and it was a lucky 
day for some of us when you chose to take 
up with a common lad like me. Howsomd- 
ever, you'll not regret it, for 111 stick to you 
like wax through thick and thin — for you're a 
real good sort — till we two can retire and 
become J.P.s. This is an awful dismal place 
I've found for you,' he proceeded, *but it's 
for the best, if you only can be jDatient and 
manage to put up with it. I've got an idea 
of summat that might amuse you in your 
solitude, if you don't think I'm too bold in 
making suggestions to such a clever bloke.' 
Perceiving, by a quick glance askance, that 
I did not resent the libertv, he went on in 



RETIREMENT. 119 



confidential tones : ' I've seen the Reverend 
Tilofoe about. His book's made for him no 
end of friends, who are indignant at the 
shocking way he's been treated in prison. 
Ain't he cunning too ! Tliey want him to 
go out to South Africa as a missionary ; but 
that's not in his Hne, you may take your oath. 
Worse than the hotel, wouldn't it be ? His 
book's paid well, so he's in collar, and will 
set up as a littery krakter, and be buried 
in Westminster Abbey, I shouldn't wonder. 
But in the meanwhile his life's all skittles. 
TSere are boards about announcing that 
'^ (D.V.) a converted convict will preach, 
and snatch brands from the burning," and all 
that old fake. We've 'ad converted railway- 
porters, and converted prize-fighters and 
navvies, and what not ; but a convict'll be 
a new sensation, specially one as can yelp like 
anything. It's a pity he can't appear in the 
beautiful mustard suit as per prison-photo ! 
He's made hisself quite at home in a lot 
of wealthy families. It's queer, ain't it, that 
when old ladies turn pious they lose their 
common sense % Oh no ; you needn't grin, 
for I don't Sfruda^e him his buttered toast. 



1 20 RE T I REM E NT. 



The life must be fearful 'ard work, and an 
awful noosance such as the likes of me couldn't 
stand, who go in for a crust and freedom. 
And much as I hate his sliminess, I am 
bound to confess that we owe 'im one for 
having a good dig at the villains as locked 
us up. "47 Party, sir, all krect !" I wake 
up with a jump in the night sometimes, 
and seem to hear 'em sinofinof of it out as if 
they enjoyed it ; and it rings in my 'ed for 
days. Oh, bless your soul, no ! I don't 
grudge the parson his little tit-bits that he's 
earned by his own unaided talent ; nor yet 
do T grudge t'other convicts their earnings, as 
'ave also come out in the littery line ; but 
they've none of 'em done as well as they 
might. I think a clever bloke as 'as more 
book-learning than all the lot spliced together 
might go a deal further without fear of being 
disbelieved.' (Here Spevins inserted a finger 
between my ribs. ) ^ Lawk a mercy, if I only 
was littery! Wouldn't I pile it up hot for 
them warders — sarcy brutes ! Ye see, people 
being so inclined to take things for granted 
makes it so worry simple. This ere Tilgoe, 
now, allows that every warder ain't of neces- 



RETIREMENT. 121 



sity a scamp. Do you think I'd admit that \ 
The tyrants; don't they one and aU ring 
their blooming behs as reg'lar as clock-work, 
and distract a poor chap about the foldin' of 
is bed-clothes till he gets that frantic he'd 
like to cut his throat ? Since I've bin out I've 
never made my bed — no, nor let no one else 
make it neither. I kicks the blankets on the 
floor, and they lie there till I want 'em. Those 
warders ain't got it half hot enough, nor the 
governors neither ; while as for the doctors, I'd 
say lots of things. I'd admit nothing good of 
'em — not a scrap — I'd rather die first. Why 
shouldn't you go in for a whack at the whole 
bunch ?' 

But I shook my head, for I aspired to a loftier 
flight. Where he was leading me I might be 
dull, but any dulness was better than such a 
task. ' No !' I replied shortly; ^such small deer 
as prison-officials we'll leave to Tilgoe and men 
like him. The people who make laws are those 
I aim at. Legislators who glibly settle a 
knotty point without considering sufficiently 
its working; who, when forced to look at what 
they've done, hold up their hands and cry, 
''Who'd have thought it!" Those are the 



J22 RETIREMENT. 



people whose homes I would make miser- 
able — in whose households I would sow dis- 
trust. I'd touch those on the raw by disturb- 
ing their luxuriance and comfort, for it's the 
only revenge open to men situated as we are. 
Lead on, Spevins ! are we not near the place ? 
We seem to have traversed miles of filth ! 
Are you taking me to Hades through the 
bowels of the earth ? 

To what an appalling eyrie was he conducting 
me. We had passed down Kosemary Lane some 
minutes since, and had plunged into a mazy 
series of stifling courts, repidsive to sight and 
smell, where greasy ooze and heaps of putrefy- 
ing offal set our feet sliding, while a mucous 
greenness trickling down the walls chilled our 
marrow, and caused every bit of woodwork 
(though we were in warm September) to feel 
cold and clammy. Had we not reached the 
bourne — not yet? Sure, nothing could be more 
remote from the busy hum than this. Through 
a doorway, from which the door had crumbled, 
I looked on a man dying, as it were, in j)ublic ; 
while two shiverinof half-naked infants sat 

CD 

staring and shuddering hard by. A woman — 
I suppose it was a woman, though aj^parently 



RETIREMENT. 123. 

a Qiere huddled heap of rags — crouched by a 
crazy table, sewing, sewing, for dear hfe, with 
an all-absorbing frenzy which set me dreaming. 

' Isn't it sad, Spevins,' I mused aloud, ' that 
the history of the world should be a record 
of strucycrles after food, and that even the 
goal of that low ambition should in so many 
cases be unattainable ! That man is on the 
threshold, and will soon have passed. Those 
children, so livid and so hollow-eyed, are passing 
— passing. Foolish woman, they are doomed ! 
why struggle any more ? What good can 
come of it ? Surely you would not desire to 
retain themhere? Toss away the sack, abandon 
the unequal contest. Gathering up your rags, 
poor mother, lie you down and wait beside 
him and his who are moving out of sight.' A 
few short hours — of hard tussle maybe, but 
yet, short hours, and the end will come — the 
blessed end whose bourne is peace. Why 
wag^e a disastrous war with the inevitable ?' 

But Spevins looked serious and said no- 
thing ; he held views which coincided in no 
way with ni}^ rhapsodies. He disapproved of 
what he saw, because he considered it man'a 
privilege to put in proper order nature's slop- 



124 RETIREMENT. 



work ; and the slopwork that was stored in 
these dismal alleys showed dropped stitches 
and lamentable rents. 

Still onward, deeper and deeper, into that 
slough of misery and want we delved, until it 
seemed as though the mire would rise and 
swallow us. We groped among ghostly 
wooden outhouses that glinted through 
heavy gloom in slanting lines, as if refus- 
ing to stand longer on their crippled feet. 
Would it not be well, they seemed to 
whisper, if we were straightway to tumble 
down and bury this shameful spot ? Through 
low-browed intricate passages Ave wandered, 
which united a series of festerino- courts as 
beads are strung upon a string ; under a cum- 
brous arch, with a roar of raihvay- traffic over- 
head. How typical is this horrible place, I 
reflected, of our great Babylon! The wealthy, 
the powerful, pass daily over it, humming blithe 
airs as they skim on merrily in their indiffer- 
ence. Starvation stalks abroad, unchecked, 
straight down below as they whirl along the 
rails, within a yard or two of their sumptuous 
garments. They raise listless eyes from the 
pages of a novel as they pass over the sea of 



RETIREMENT. 125 



chimney-stacks which to them say nothing, and 
with leisurely movement pack the book away \ 
' Yes ! this is London at last/ one murmurs, 
while another straps up the rugs. ^A dingy 
place, but the j oiliest in Europe for those who 
can only afford one house. So charming, you 
know. For there^s every style of life, and 
all sorts and kinds of people from which to 
pick and choose. We shall get to the station 
directly. I do hope John has ordered a good 
dinner !' In depth of winter they fail to note 
that rows and rows of chimney-stacks are 
smokeless. And what if they are ? 'tis no busi- 
ness of theirs! Every style of life, indeed; and 
every sort and kind of people — varied society 
enough, though to some amongst the dwellers 
in the great city there is given little choice. 

Presently we debouched into a long narrow 
court, sloppy and wet by reason of broken 
drains, unsafe with hoary orange-peel and 
sweltering cabbage remnants. An anxious 
woman moved hastily towards us, striving to 
peer through the darkness ; and sighing at 
sight of strangers, prepared to withdraw. 

' We had not seen the nigger serenaders ? 
Ah, well I they must have had bad lack, or \^Qj 



126 RE TIRE ME NT. 



would havebeen home ere this. Unless they had 
fared better to-day than yesterday, the family 
must go supperless to bed. It is a hard life 
for them,' she sighed, * especially the younger 
ones, who have sought in vain for other work ; 
but the brand of their Bohemian life has 
marked them down, and they can procure 
none.' The woman went languidly in doors, 
^nd Spevins looked after her in doubt. 

*I'm all for people doing what suits 'em best,' 
he whispered, * but this lemancholy way of 
going on puts me out of temper. Didn't I ex- 
plain once afore to you my views ? Of course 
I did, and you agreed. Why should these 
stupid creatures starve when others roll in 
affluence ? — that's what strikes me about 'em. 
If by a mistake of natur they've bin over- 
looked in the distribution of good things, they 
must up and help themselves. Surelie that's 
plain enough; and if all the starving people 
came round to that oj3inion, and acted on it 
right away, the rich uns wouldn't look so 
sleepy as they drive round the Park ; for 
they'd have to do summat frisky, lest they 
should find their pockets with nothing in 
'em ! I've no patience with these creaturs, I 



RETIREMENT. 127 



haven't indeed ; they deserve then' fate for 
being so mean-spirited." 

We had reached the bourne at last — Black 
Jack Alley. Climbing up a dilapidated stair, 
AY© found ourselves on a rickety landing, 
Pvud, in trying to feel our way, our heads 
€ame in contact Avith a rafter, and we fell 
headlong against a door, which, yielding, de- 
posited us in a low room, where a tallow 
candle was burning in a bottle. We would 
have begged pardon and retired, but the feet 
of both w^ere riveted to the spot by the 
aspect of that sad interior. 

^ Don't come in here !' an old woman 
croaked in a hollow voice, as, holding her 
gaunt arms aloft, she strove to screen her 
home from us. ' What d'ye want, bothering 
wretched folk % If ye want aught, I can 
come outside.' 

There was no furniture of any kind, nor 
sign of food nor scrap of clothing in that 
gruesome chamber. On a foul heap of straw 
in one corner, the wreck of a fine young man 
of thirty wrestled Avith disease. A middle- 
ag^ed female was workinof at a sack. One 
end of it w^as hooked on a nail in the wall. 



128 RETIREMENT. 



and she held the other and worked her needle 
swiftly, helped by an excessively unclean old 
man. Many more sacks were heaped about 
the floor, and her fing^ers moved with the 
benumbed, monotonous, and dreamlike motion 
of utter hopelessness. The very action of 
her arms was a dogged protest against the 
life she led. Each of her elbows seemed to 
say, in answer to my own thought a moment 
since, ^ Yes, I'm a fool to work, I grant you, 
and yet I cannot help it. Better, I know, to 
give it up and lie down and wait ; for never 
can I win enough to keep the death-wolf 
from the door !' 

A brawny young fellow leaned against a 
wall, one hand deep in his pocket, the other 
supporting an empty pipe, at which he 
mechanically gnawed. His hands were 
black, so was his face, which otherwise would 
not have been uncomely. They were all 
thick with grime together — walls and floor 
and inmates — and the attention of all was 
concentrated, with the interest of close fellow- 
ship in misfortune, upon the writhing figure 
in the corner. 

The brawny young man glanced up, and, 



RETIREMENT. 129 

seeiDg sympathy on the good-natured Hnea- 
ments of my companion, muttered half to 
us, half to himself, between his teeth, as he 
pointed with his pipe : 

* You wouldn't think it now ! but six weeks 
ago, he, lying there, was as hale and well as 
I. He's a coalheaver, like me, and we earned 
our money honest ; and look at the poor 
creature, do ! S'pose it'll be my turn next.' 

We looked down, and surveyed a human 
being squatting on a foetid layer of filth, with 
nothing but an inch or two of rottenness 
'twixt his body and the floor. Pillow he had 
absolutely none, but supported himself by 
clinging with cramped hands to the angles 
and excrescences of the panelling. 

' He looks very ill !' I said unconsciously. 

* 111,' echoed the younger woman, flinging 
down her sack, and seizing the man, with a 
laugh, by the hair, to turn his cadaverous 
face to us. ' 111 ! Look up and show your 
beauty to these strangers. I don't know 
what they want jDrying here ; but, if they 
enjoy it, they may look and welcome !' 

Thus admonished, the man turned his fea- 
tures to us, which were pallid with the grey 
VOL. III. 52 



I30 RETIREMENT. 



hue of death, while his eyes were dim with 
the leaden glaze of approaching dissolution. 

^ He's dying/ I said coldly. ' Why should 
I pity him for that V 

' Yes, he is !' retorted the woman. ^ You 
don't care, do you ? Of course not ; then 
why not let us be \ What's he dying of? 
Want — starvation — that's his complaint. 
Now will ye be satisfied, and get ye gone ?' 

She glared fiercely from the corner where 
she crouched, and I strove to draw my com- 
panion away. The man was wasting lite- 
rally for lack of a crust of bread. Well ! 
Not a pleasant method, I daresay, of escaping 
from an unjust world. But, after all, escape 
is the main pointy and to achieve it we will 
go through much. In crawling through the 
window at Dartmoor, Soda had scraped the 
skin from ofi* his back, but he reckoned his 
skin as of less value than his liberty. This 
coalheaver was on the threshold, like dozens, 
perhaps, in this colony ; another gasp or two, 
and he too would be at liberty. No ! I 
could not find it within me to pity him. 
Pity had long ago been seared out of my 
breast. I had prayed in vain so often^ that 



RETIREMENT. 131 

the Pilgrim might unveil and set me free, that 
I had ceased to consider Death in any form 
as anything but Release. In my own case 
the craving was past for the present, for I 
was absorbed by an engrossing object. I did 
not pity these people, but I did feel that we 
had no right to intrude upon the sacredness 
of their trouble. 

But Spevins would not go. He was kneel- 
ing on the floor beside the man. 

^ What's this ? A bad knee V he inquired. 

The dying man smiled, and whispered : 

' An old hurt ! A doctor saw it, and pre- 
scribed linseed poultices. I was to buy food 
for my knee while my stomach remains 
empty ! One thing or t'other, that's all I 
care about. I wouldn't mind if I could get 
well again ; but it's a sore thing to see 'em 
wearing out their strength for one who'll 
never do any more good ;' and he traced list- 
less patterns on the wall with ashen fingers, 
and fell back fatigued and panting, cramped 
and crippled, in the angle of the Avainscoting. 

* Now look ye here !' Spevins exclaimed, 
genuinely touched. ' I'm a poor devil myself, 
as 'as bin dreadful unfortnit', and that makes 

52—2 



132 RETIREMENT. 



me p'raps sorry for you, while I despise you. 
If I was a rich cove, I could afford to do all 
the despising without the sorrow. When 
I'm unfortnit', it ain't for want of trying ; 
but if the odds will go agin me, what am I to 
do ? Howsomever, they're on the turn now, 
and I should 'ave bad luck sartin sure if I 
were to go away and leave you to die like a 
dog ; so you may put it down to selfishness, 
and feel no obligation. 'Ere's half-a-dollar 
anyhow. Somebody go and buy the poor 
mean-sperited creetur' summat, while some- 
body else shows this 'ere gen'leman up to his 
apartment.' 

The effect of the burglar's brief harangue 
was greater than could have attended the 
most highly-polished eloquence. Unused to 
kindness, and save, perhaps, a passing word 
of sympathy from one in a like condition, the 
elder woman stared stupidly at the coin, 
without a word of thanks, as she held it in 
hungry talons, while the other sank with 
sobs on the labourinof breast of the moribund. 
The young coalheaver withdrew the empty 
pipe from between his teeth, and muttered : 

' God bless you ! but it comes too late. 



RETIREMENT. 133 



Thank ye kindly though, all the same.' Then 
rousing himself to look at the new lodger, he 
added : ^ So this is the party as is a-going to 
live where old Flintoff croaked ? It's on the 
floor above ; I'll show you.' And brushing 
the back of his dusky hand across his face to 
wipe away a tear, he took the bottle with the 
candle in it, and led the way. 

A peal of laughter from below startled 
me. 

Good heavens ! I thought, what has 
laughter to do in Black Jack Alley % Light- 
heartedness seems inextinguishable in some 
people. Laughter at Dartmoor is compre- 
hensible enousfh, for its inmates have no 
iLumediate cares beyond their tale of labour. 
Like the lilies of the field, they have no 
thought for the morrow, what they shall eat, 
or what they shall drink, or what they shall 
put on. But could these wretches here afford 
to laugh, standing as they do on the brink of 
the same chasm which is swallowing up all 
their neighbours 1 Yet perhaps this merri- 
ment savours more of callousness than mirth, 
more of bravado than of heart's ease. 

' Those are the serenaders,' explained our 



134 RETIREMENT. 



guide, who was looking me up and down with 
stealthy surprise. ^ They've been lucky to- 
day, I suppose, so they're jolly. I'm glad of 
it, for they're honest chaps, and their lives 
are precious hard !' 

How these starving creatures prated of 
honesty ! What was this one staring at ? 
The quaint idea flitted across my mind that, 
peradventure, they who were starving would 
ostracise me as a gaol-bird ! 

Was, then, my appearance so very odd ? 
Was the prison odour perceptible even to this 
fellow \ Was it to be like Jaggs and the 
paupers in the workhouse ? Some such 
notion occurred, too, to Spevins, who showed 
misgivings, and began to mumble apologies 
for his inconsistent conduct just now. 

^ I can't comprehend these coves,' he whis- 
pered, ^ who've got empty stommicks and idle 
arms that hang down like bell-pulls. If they 
prefer to perish of starvation, I've no call to 
interfere, but I couldn't help giving that half- 
dollar. We only feel contempt, of course, for 
anything so helpless ; and yet it's 'ard to see a 
fellow-creetur' miserable when ye can prevent 
it. Besides, that half-dollar was in payment 



RETIREMENT. i35 

for what's worth havin'. It's the sight of 
this kind of brooding misery that makes me 
quite easy-hke in my conscience as to my hne 
of business. When I makes an unseasonable 
call, and walk off with a swell's valuables 
while he's a-snorin' on his feather-bed up- 
stairs, I says to myself, ^^ Parsons who preach 
say that what I'm a-doin' is wery wrong, but 
it ain't nuffin of the kind. It's all right, my 
rosy cove," I says ; ^^ you'll be vexed to lose 
your valuables, but I'm only servin' you out 
for never thinking of anybody but yourself. 
The rich blokes as are so cool and careless as 
to let such things as this go on comfortably 
at their elbow, have got to be made to suffer 
for it. They've got to have so many strokes 
with the cat. It ain't my fault, is it, if I 
happen to be the cat, and chance to do myself 
a good turn at the same time % Besides, when 
I makes a good haul, the helpless coves as 
can't feed themselves come in for their share 
of spoon-meat. It's my way of paying 
taxes. I always was charitable to the very 
poor, though they're wrong not to be more 
independent-like ; and yet perhaps that's 
their misfortun', as it is when a chap goes off 



136 RETIREMENT. 

his nut ; and when a chap's off his nut, he 
ain't responsible for his foohsh acts.' 

The coalheaver was some way ia front of 
us, so my companion's pecuhar opinions did 
not reach his ears. Neither did he hear him 
say: 

' Since you've got to hve here, it's as well 
to be friendly. Whatever is he starin' at so 
hard ?' 

Uj) the stair we stumbled somehow — a 
straight stair like a ladder, with a step or 
two missing, and several others on the point 
of giving way; and on the second-floor we 
found my room. 

' This is the place, I suppose,' the young 
coalheaver remarked, snuffing the wick with 
his fingers that we might take in the beauties 
of the premises. ' Leastways, it's the only 
room that's free. You see, if we don't pay 
no rent, nobody bothers to turn us out. 
Flintoff lived here. This is his furniture. 
Not very spicy, but better than ourn below. 
He didn't need to pop his chairs and tables, 
for he was a miser as used to o-o beo-oina • 
and we found two hundred pounds in 
sovereigns and silver sewn into his mattress, 



RETIREMENT. ' 137 



when mother, whom you saw downstairs, came 
up to wash the body.' 

* You did !' ejaculated Spevins ; 'and what 
did you do with it '?' 

^ He left no heirs and had no friends, so it 
went to the Queen, I've heard say.' 

Spevins gave a long whistle, and scratched 
his head in ever-increasing scorn. 

*And you let it go to lierf he cried at 
length, in a tone of withering contempt. 

' It wasn't ourn/ responded the other with 
hauteur ; then turning to me as though the 
subject were displeasing, he said : ' You'll 
excuse me, but you look a better sort than 
most who come to live here ; I mean you've 
got good clothes and that. Of course it's not 
my business to know your circumstances, but 
if you should want anything done, don't 
forget me. I'm willing enough, God knows ; 
but I'm out of work and out of collar, through 
no fault of mine, and likely to remain so. 
Good-night, and thank ye kindly for my poor 
mate.' 

And so he left us, and Spevins sighed 
mournfully as he listened to his blundering 
steps upon the creaking stair. 



138 RETIREMENT. 

^ Well, that's woful !' he remarked pre- 
sently, with professional regret. * A great 
stalwart fellow like that to say he's out of 
work, and there are cribs I've got my eye on 
that are waiting to be cracked. Literally 
yawning and yearning for it, they are ! 
Didn't somebody say that Heaven will help 
him as helps hisself ? Well, well ! it's dis- 
couragino^ to see men waste their opportu- 
nities. We're going to help ourselves by- 
and-by, ain't we '? I thought for a minute 
that he spotted your hair, and that there 
might be unpleasantness. These chaps are 
so ignorant and stoopid, and have such queer 
ideas. But it's ajl serene. He thinks you 
too distingy for the likes o' him, that's all ; 
and he's right enough there, my gentleman 
lag, ain't he ?' 

Here Mr. Spevins went through an excru- 
ciating performance of holding his breath and 
driving gimlets into his lips to prevent any- 
thing issuing thence, till he grew scarlet in 
the face, and threatened to have a fit. But 
his jocularity was short-lived. The brawny 
coalheaver stuck in his throat ; and resuming 
his original colour by degrees, he declared 



RETIREMENT. i39 

that what vexed him most about nature's 
slopwork was the quantity of wasted material 
in it. ' You see it everywhere/ he said, ' from 
the lardy-dardy young nobs, who say they're 
soldiers, and pretend to be exhausted by half 
an hour's ride in a tin hat, down to fellars like 
this one who's too imbecile — as the others are 
too idle — to use the powers he's been given. 
The lardy young nobs would make good 
enough food for powder — I grant they're not 
fit for much else, being empty-pated — if they 
were shaken up and sent off to do soldiers' 
work, instead of taking exhausting rides 
about London in tin hats and dish-covers ; 
and in the same way, first-rate cracksmen 
might be made out of this sort, if they only 
had the gumption. Look at his arms ! And 
what a chest ! How he would wield a bar ! 
But it's gumption that's wanted, that's what 
it is. The general distribution of good 
things was awfully mismanaged. Some had 
all the wealth, and some had none ; some 
had health, and some had none ; while as to 
gumption, it was Avorse than all. Not one 
in a hundred had a drop of it; though 
gumption was invented to help to put 



I40 RETIREMENT. 

crooked things straight. Now I've gumption, 
as my Hfe has shown, though I did fetch one 
lagging, and know better now than to fetch 
another. And you've gumption, haven't 
you ? Oh, tweezers !' 

Here Mr. Spevins, overcome with an ex- 
cess of appreciation, danced a war-dance 
round me, with a snapping of fingers and 
steps of heel and toe which fairly shook the 
tenement, then subsided panting on a stool, 
while he watched his prize out of the corner 
of one glittering and appreciative eye, as a 
robin does when you throw it a crumb of 
bread. 

' Yes, weve gumption,' he ecstatically 
^ried, * lots of it — more nor our share. And 
we'll turn up trumps — that's to say J.P.s — 
you'll see ! There now ! We never know 
v^^hat's good for us. When I was nabbed I 
did feel shocking cross. Ain't it too bad, I 
grumbled, to have been left out in the dis- 
tribution, and then to be Avhipped up for 
attempting to put things square ? But I was 
wrong, and I'm sorry now I Avas cross. For 
though I'd laid an Qgg, I couldn't have 
hatched it without the help of such a hen as 



RETIREMENT. 141 

you to sit on it ; and where could I hope to 
come in contact with a upper-class bloke like 
you except at the Hotel ? There's the good 
of the Hotel, and I'm not ungrateful. It 
throws all sorts together, and out of the 
jumble queer results arise. Out in the open 
sea queer bits of wood drift together — bits of 
American mahogany and bits of English 
deal ; queer friendships are formed in quod, 
which could never otherwise exist. I'm 
grateful for its hospitality once, but never no 
more — no thank you ; I've learnt all I wished 
to learn, formed all the friendships I wanted 
to form. And now^, cheer up, old pal ! I'll 
be down here as often as it's prudent. Be 
cautious, and keep up your pecker, and good- 
night !' 




CHAPTER III. 



BROODING. 




HE time I spent in Black Jack 
Alley did not tend to reconcile me 
to tlie world. It seemed to me 
that I must be doing my ^ separates ' again, 
or that in consequence of many breaches of 
discipline and the discovery of the famous 
plot, I had been condemned to ^ Second pro- 
bation.' And if I had, could it have been 
worse than this ? No ! nor half as bad. I 
had seen men undergoing ' Second probation' 
when I was at Pentonville ; men who, too 
wicked even for 57 Party, had been returned 
to a close prison for close confinement. Proved 
to be too unrul}^ for association upon public 
works, men of this description are locked 
up alone ; but then they are looked after with 



BROODING. 143 



no less care than formerly. Their clothes 
are no less good, nor is their food. Their 
cells are not less well warmed ; their supply 
of books is not diminished. And how did I 
stand ? Day after day I sat alone by the 
crazy table of the defunct miser, conning a 
book or lost in reverie, more apart from my 
fellow-men than if I had been in prison. 
Thanks to Spevins I had money enough for 
my meagre wants, and by his desire — strange 
whimsy I — deposited a shilling on every 
second day upon the floor of the room below. 
Spite of all that could be done the young 
man died. Kolled in a tattered sheet he was 
whisked down the narrow stair, flung into a 
pauper's shell upon a barrow, and trundled 
ofl* — who cared whither ? His women-folk 
accepted their loss with a resignation which 
looked like indiflerence. The serenaders re- 
marked that one breather the less in the 
little room, would make it more wholesome 
for the rest. This was his requiem. The 
sackmakers had one less mouth to try and 
feed. Yet what could that signify, consider- 
ing how unsuccessful were their efforts ? I 
thought, and thought, and thought, and 



144 BROODING. 



reviewed the piled-up injuries of the last 
twelve years, and listened to curious sounds, 
framing a story for each ; an occasional out- 
cry, a shriek now and then; frequently a 
noise of quarrelling which ended in a bang, 
a thud, and then silence. Now and again a 
song crooned to a baby ; and this jarred most 
upon my nerves, where everything was dis- 
tressing. I thought much of Spevins — that 
strange paradox. Gaily, for sake of gain, he 
was preparing to dress himself like Nemesis. 
Goaded by a filmy vision of some day being 
enthroned as a J. P., and of administering 
justice to others, instead of himself standing 
in the dock, he was smilingly ready to lead 
as many domestic servants as possible to 
their ruin, to spread dismay and distrust into 
the bosoms of hundreds of famihes, by adroit 
use of the gumption whereby crooked things 
were to be set straight. And yet the 
spectacle of a young man dying of star- 
vation was too much for him. He could 
make grateful pensioners of that youth's 
belongings, and be harassmgiy particular 
as to the payment of the pension ! How 
much more rational was m}^ position I I had 



BROODING. 145 



the best of reasons for making of myself a 
scourge — the central, most knotted thong of 
it. But I felt no feelinof for these besotted 
persons, only contempt for their abjectness in 
refraining from giving tit for tat. Whether 
right in my theories or not, I was consistent. 
Time was when I too had crouched and 
groaned, but I knew better now. Is our 
manhood to count for nothing % has it no 
dignity? Are we not to resent injustice? 
As I thought of it, my life, which had been 
broken in a moment of unconscious error, 
rose like a many-headed hydra, and mowed 
at me, and hissed out of its myriad mouths : 
* You're right I If you are smitten, smite 
again in turn ; an eye for an eye, a tooth for 
a tooth I Who prates of the other cheek ? Do 
not crouch and groan, but gird up your 
loins and strike without considering what 
may result.' 

If such over-prudent considerations might 
obtain, where would the golden garlands be 
which adorn the galleries of Walhalla — gar- 
lands whose flowers sprang from the life- 
blood of heroes, who flung away their lives 
for an idea % My life, save for one purpose, 

VOL. III. 53 



146 BROODING. 



was valueless, for it had no future. My 
lance was splintered ere the fight com- 
menced ; yet would I grasp the shivered 
shaft and smite mine enemy a vengeful blow 
in the back. He would turn and bear me 
down ; what mattered that % My wound 
would be there, my weapon would be stick- 
ing between his shoulder-blades. What 
mattered if he slew me afterwards ? I 
should have entered my protest, have done 
my best in the way of vengeance against an 
enemy stronger than myself, and no man 
may do more. I cared not for the vulgar 
advantages which sent Spevins to the 
seventh heaven. When Spevins should 
retire on his wealth, was I prepared to do 
likewise ? No I If vengeance could be com- 
plete, then would my task be done ; but it 
would never be complete. He should have 
the wealth, and welcome — I, the revenge. 
If I might live through a long life — and now 
I nursed myself like a hypochondriac, and 
husbanded my health — it should be but for 
one object. That Society, whose ban had 
crushed me, should, so long as my life 
endured, writhe in a bed of scorpions. 



BROODING. 147 



What more dreadful than an unseen, im- 
placable foe % An unseen hand should 
constantly disturb its rest, an unseen finger 
direct invisible cohorts^ whose shadov/y 
columns should be an eternal nightmare. 
All my skill, all my pent-up venom, should 
be directed to the great object. What if in 
the end the mask should be torn away ? 
What if the master-spirit, who in time was 
to drill all criminal London into a compact 
body, were some day to be betrayed and 
captured ? Well, what of that ? True dis- 
ciple of Spevins, I was prepared to take the 
odds. Heads or tails. Vengeance or anni- 
hilation. Had I not been a ' lifer ' % What 
worse fate could their ingenuity prepare for 
me ? Fools, triple fools, to have been de- 
ceived, by a part I had well sustained, into 
taking the badge from off my arm ! All 
terror of punishment was past. I feared 
nothing which they could do to me, for I 
had undergone the worst. . Even if I were 
caught and sent back to Dartmoor, my 
condition would be better than it had been ; 
for I should have done something in return 
for servitude — I should have left my mark in 

r, c; 9 

J O -J 



148 BROODING. 



that shaft sticking between the shoulder- 
blades — I should no longer be gnawed by the 
intolerable bitterness of wronof. 

Thus pondered I, in the blank security of 
my retreat. The young coalheaver, mate of 
the deceased, stared more than ever, and 
became more mystified and more awe- 
stricken. Thanks to' Spevins he had to- 
bacco in his pipe, and it took all his time, 
whilst smoking, to wonder who, and what I 
was, and why I should have chosen so 
uncheerful an abiding-place. My intentions 
could scarcely be felonious, for, during the 
first month or tw^o of my sojourn in Black 
Jack Alley, I never moved out of the nook 
wherein we dwelt. I was always reading, or 
sitting in a day-dream with my chin upon 
my hand. And then the people who dropped 
in occasionally. Jaggs — slightly disguised, his 
glory under a bushel — would creep in some- 
times, under cover of the dusk, to spend a 
jovial evening ; and sometimes Spevins ; 
bringing wdth them a companion or two in 
mysterious great-coats, and mufflers ; and ^ 
viands, whose succulence was to make up to 
me for the dreariness of confinement ; and 



BROODING. 149 



books, and odds and ends of comfort. Jaggs, 
even in demi-glory, was to the coalheaver a 
scarifying and blinding spectacle, and on 
each and every visit of the transcendent 
individual in jyeaii de Suede gloves with 
greased interiors, the simple fellow became 
humbler and more amazed. Why a man 
like me who belonged to a different class, 
who had such noble friends, and was not 
devoid of means, should elect to dwell in 
so unsavoury a spot, passed his dim com.- 
prehension. But after all he and his were 
indirectly the gainers, for he did odd jobs for 
which he was paid by me, and Spevins never 
called without a friendly nod and timely 
assistance for the family who dwelt below. 
Therefore the brawny youth wisely made up 
his mind that it was no business of his, in 
which j)rudent resolve he was abetted by the 
serenaders, who were called in now and then 
to enliven us with minstrelsy, and who 
considered themselves amply repaid for a 
song by the largess of a polony, accompanied 
by a draught of ale. 

Both Jaggs and I were completely under 
the dominion of Spevins, with this difference : 



I50 BROODING. 



the gentlemanly one, haughty to him no more, 
was a trusty lieutenant, who, in obedience to 
orders, watched me with a lynx-like sur- 
veillance. There was no need for the burglar 
to watch him, for he had established himself 
in loco 'parentis to the wayward manipulator 
of the thimbles and the pea, and the latter 
was quite pleased with the arrangement. 
But with me it was different. I was not to 
be a slave, or one of the rank and file. 1 was, 
as it were, a future sovereign enduring his 
minority. He who would willingly obey my 
orders later^ was my tutor now. It was his 
business at present to instruct, and also to 
see that his precious charge was kept out of 
peril. Therefore, whilst treating me with 
deference and resjDect, he kept a tight hand 
upon my movements, and set Jaggs also to 
watch lest haply I should repent and dis- 
appear. It was curious that Jaggs should 
have shown no jealousy ; but his shrewdness 
and his selfishness prevented such a contin- 
gency from arising, for he was a sensible 
fellow when not playing the bab}^, and knew 
where his interest lay. When he came to 
supper, for instance, and brought a chicken, 



BROODING. iqi 



he invariably helped himself to the liver 
wing ; but then he also was careful to see 
that I had the other, in preference to any 
comrade who might have arrived in his 
train. Whilst discussing pros and cons, 
in the quarry or the ^ farm,' he had at first 
resented the proposition pitilessly urged by 
Spevins, that his gentility was not real 
enough to pass muster among sagacious 
butlers. But his common sense brought him 
round ere long, and he confessed with his 
light laugh that on his sun there might be a 
flaw or so, and that it was better to run no 
risks. His gentility, he was fain to admit en 
"petit comite, was more remarkable for 
splendid deportment than for high-toned con- 
versation such as should impress grooms of 
the chamber. He admitted with engaging 
frankness that he might possibly be floored 
by an aesthetic butler in a verbal conflict, 
and therefore condescended with grace to 
occupy a lower seat, which, as Spevins 
pointed out, was just made for him. His 
own department was cut and dried by the ad- 
mirable premier in the furry cap — a depart- 
ment connected chiefly with masters at race- 



152 BROODING. 



courses and the pockets in which they kept 
their chattels. He was to stray into our 
pubUc-house now and again as a casual 
stranger^ and to make up, in an infantine 
manner, to such valets as had theatrical 
proclivities ; he was to be full of innocent 
enthusiasm and comic song^s, and to induct 
the said valets, with a view to becoming 
intimate, into the mysteries of the music- 
halls, having himself obtained the entree 
through some houris in the back-row of the 
ballet. This was an interesting role, one 
requiring considerable skill, so he could 
afford to admit without too much loss of 
dignity, that I was the real picture-card 
whose presence in the pack was to win the 
odd trick ; and that therefore it w^as clearly 
his interest to see that I was amused as well 
as watched. Therein lay the difference 
between Jaggs and Spevins, and I knew 
it all the while. The one was really 
attached to me by reason of my brilliant 
qualities, the other made believe to be so in 
furtherance of his own future prospects. 

But try to amuse me as they would, time 
hung terribly heavy on my hands, and I felt 



BROODING. 153 



the irksomeness of this short confinement 
more than the years at Dartmoor. The 
discipHne of the prison had its effect on me 
as on others. I knew that there I must do 
as^ I was bidden in the long-run. Here 
there was nothing to prevent me from 
walking abroad except prudence, and there 
were moments of exasperation when that 
solitary virtue well-nigh deserted me. Not 
quite though. Unstable and impulsive I 
used to be in the old days, but that was 
altered now. I lived for one object and one 
only ; so, curbing the restlessness which 
devoured me, I forced myself to remain 
secluded, and dreamed, and built castles in 
the air. 

There was one vision which, disarmed as I 
was by inaction, persisted in appearing be- 
fore my eyes — the vision which, in the early 
days of my travail, had been the cause of my 
most poignant anguish. As those years 
advanced, and my nature became twisted into 
the new warp, the vision had grown fainter, 
for my mind became engrossed with pictures 
of earth and hell, and not of heaven ; and this 
particular vision was crocus-hued, like sunrise. 



154 BROODING. 

It was a vision of a maiden with a tangle 
of golden hair. What — in the lapse of time 
wherein I had been so tempest-tossed — had 
become of my little Mildred ? It was in 
vain that, sitting with hands before me now 
(accustomed for many years to fresh air and 
muscular exertion), I strove to banish the 
portrait of my darling from my thoughts. 
The sacrifice I had made, in renouncing my 
identity for her sake, seemed only to have 
endeared her to me the more. It was in 
vain that the outcast kept repeating, that 
Ebenezer Anderson was not her father, that 
he had nothing to do with her, or she with 
him. The twain were as far removed as the 
two poles. And then the oddity of it all 
would wring from him a smile. What could 
the dilettante licensed victualler, fresh from 
money grubbing in Australia and not a bit 
proud, have in common with the painter's 
daughter, the lovely blue- eyed blonde, who 
was the admired of all comers 1 Of course 
she was lovely, and of course she was 
admired — a radiant vision of gladsome youth 
and beauty ; as a child was she not an angel, 
wanting only wings ? 



BROODING. 155 



She must be grown up now, or nearly so. 
How old ? Sixteen ! Many a girl is quite a 
woman at that age, while some linger yet on 
the confines of childhood. How was it with 
my darling, my golden-haired pet, upon whose 
silken cocoons I was never to look asfain ? 
As the vision persisted in shining out clearer 
and more clear upon the wall, I caught my- 
self with choking sensations in my throat, 
and, groaning, clasped my eyes with my two 
hands to keep out the too well-remembered pic- 
ture. What was this ? A fine avenger, truly, 
who was ready to break down like an hysterical 
school-girl at the apparition of a phantom. 
Oh, blessed Past, in that it is irretrievable ! 
Mocking visions, why should I fear ye ? 
What is done is done, and may not be un- 
done ; what is past is gone, and may never 
be recalled. I had dug my own grave, and 
it was a yawning chasm. I had got into my 
coflftn and slammed down the lid. How silly, 
then, to quarrel with its narrowness. 'Twixt 
me and those who once were mine was death 
and a new birth — the barrier of another life, 
of a different nature, of a new identity. What 
folly, then, was this of mine (how often I re- 



156 BROODING. 



peated it !), this looking back from the plough, 
this yearning with outstretched arms after 
that which was out of reach ! What right 
had I to yearn when I was satisfied that 
thinofs were Avell ? The Past was closed and 
clamped ; the Present was a hlank page. 
My new and different life lay in the Future, 
not the Past. I must not look back, but 
forward. 

Thus reasoned the outcast with himself in 
solitude, strivino: to find a refugee from haunt- 
ing visions in his books. Among the miser's 
effects was a cracked looking-glass, and in 
it each day I made a long survey of my 
appearance, with an eye to Scotland Yard. 
The same gloomy fixed expression of calm 
was there, which had startled me when on 
coming out of prison I had first looked in 
a mirror. The lowering, sullen look of which 
warders and governors alike had complained 
as dangerous, I had never seen ; but even 
this cold stony mask of calm was ominous 
enough of ill. It was the threatening lull 
before the hurricane, in which twigs and 
leaves hang motionless as if enchanted, to be 
tossed an instant later like mad things, torn 



BROODING. 157 



with wild fury from their boughs. It was 
too pecuhar and unearthly a facial mask for a 
human being to wear. The eyes looked out 
as cold as Jaggs's ; the hard lines about the 
lips were not pleasant to behold. 

I observed with satisfaction, however, 
that my beard and hair grew apace. Although 
only thirty-five years old, both were grizzled, 
and that pleased me too. So altered in colour 
of locks and in expression, a friend of early 
days would look in my face and pass me by. 
So far, so good. It would not be well for 
Ebenezer Anderson to resemble that other 
man, who was buried twelve years ago. To 
each of us our distinct individuality. That 
other was dark-haired, rose-cheeked, given to 
swift moods, like cloud-flecks on a plain. Were 
these the peculiarities of Ebenezer 1 No. This 
expression will not do, though, I muttered, 
as I surveyed myself It must be modified, 
for it is uncanny. Detectives recognise men 
by their expression more than by their fea- 
tures, and so can penetrate well-nigh any 
disguise. I must bring my features under 
control, as I have my temper. Pooh ! 
is not anything possible for him who is 



158 BROODING. 



over-mastered by one motive ? The really 
dangerous men are those who have set all 
upon a single cast ; Avho, so that their 
puny results be gained, will stake against it 
heaven, hell, eternity ! I was one of them, 
as my face showed too plainly. It was 
visible in my eyes, engraved in the furrows 
on my brow ; and the outward evidence of 
this must at once be charmed away. I would 
alter it. It would occupy my time and 
thoughts, to the exclusion of that vision, to 
sit for hours before the glass, and educate 
my eyebrows into a shape which should be- 
come habitual. This might be achieved 
without too much labour if practised con- 
stantly. Why not 1 Was not I a man 
absorbed by one idea — revenge ? Despite my- 
self, there was that haunting vision pictured 
on the wall — alas, alas ! 

The longer I remained idle, the more 
difficult did it become to chase away that 
vision. When Jaggs and Spevins had de- 
parted, after a carouse, it visited me in slumber. 
One day I announced to Spevins that I could 
endure my state no longer. ^ I must go out 
and jostle against unblighted mortality,' I 



BROODING. 159 



said. ' Cooped up here in this horrible den, 
where the sights which I see daily would 
tear my heart to shreds if I had one to tear, 
I am getting hipped and out of sorts. 
Heavens ! what are Pentonville and Dart- 
moor to this ? The crime of these men and 
women is Poverty ; and their punishment is 
infinitely more severe than that meted by the 
law to our caged criminals. Offensive though 
it is, I am not sorry, for one reason, to have 
looked on the seamiest side of Liberty. We 
are fully justified in acting as we are going to 
do. Lazarus was a donkey not to murder 
Dives, instead of grovelling with the dogs 
about the gate ; for, if he had perished in the 
attempt, he would have at least shortened his 
unbearable existence. But the constant con- 
templation of him and all his large family 
here is wearing to sensitive nerves, and I 
don't like it. I must leave this foul cupboard 
in which you mew me up at all events for a 
few hours every day, or, I tell you plainly, 
I won't answer for myself.' 

Spevins smiled his bright smile and showed 
his teeth. 

' All right, guv'nor,' he answered, touching 



i6o BROODING. 



his furry head-gear. ' The only queer part of 
it is that you should a kep it up so long. Your 
hair's sprouting as fast as mustard and cress 
used on my old granny's petticoat. We ought 
to make a exhibition of yer in a glass case ; 
yet that might be ill-conwenient, considering 
that our glass-house wont a-bear stone- 
throwing. It must be mortial trying, surelie, 
to be still a prisoner after twelve years of 
''27 Party, all krekt.'' I tell yer, I could 
not hev' done it, not to save me from a 
second lagging straight away. But it won't 
do to spile the whole job by being in a hurry. 
If you must go out, go out at dusk, and be 
in again before daylight, and avoid the streets 
where the shops are too brightly lighted ; 
likewise the lively district where I live and 
Jaofofs and the rest of us. • Detectives are 
hovering there constantly, like cats meouling 
on the tiles. But, bless yer, I don't mind 
'em. They can't bring nothing up agin me, 
and my ticket's in my pocket, and I'm be- 
having on the square, and workmg at a trade 
as a blind, so I'm all right. But you've gone 
abroad, we must remember ; and though the 
mustard and cress is getting on, I can't say 



BROODING. i6i 

as it's not to be improved upon. Give another 
month's growth, and you shall come out of 
quarantine ; and then we'll start fair upon 
the job.' 

Of course he was right. It was weak of 
me to be impatient. Yet to remain constantly 
within these four walls was out of the question. 
But I would begin a series of night rambles ; 
would wander in secluded and half-lit streets ; 
in the parks and quiet squares ; and, whilst 
breathing fresher air than ever penetrated into 
our seething warren, would revolve the great 
scheme again in my simmering brain, to be 
sure that the chain was perfect — each link 
securely riveted. 

My first walk was to Mayfair, to look for 
myself upon the scene of future triumphs. 
Nothing, certainly, could be more admirable 
than the position of the house. Leaning 
against the opposite blank wall, I could, from 
my dark corner^ survey what passed within ; 
and I remained there for hours watching ; 
for, before the present landlord should leave, 
it vv^as obviously my duty to learn my busi- 
ness. The ground-floor was divided into two 
bars — each provided with swing doors — one 

VOL. III. 54 



1 62 BROODING, 



of which faced the by-street, the other the 
mews. Nothing, I reraarked, could be more 
distinct than the two classes of visitors. Tall 
men, with powdered heads, surmounted by 
billycock hats perched sideways ; their nether 
limbs clad in tightly-fitting breeches of gaudy 
hue, and pink silk stockings ; their bodies ar- 
rayed in smart shooting -jackets of sporting 
cut ; lounged in by the mews-door, and sprawl- 
ing over the bar, cutty in mouth, discussed 
with their fellows the small-talk of the even- 
ing, chucking under the chin now and then 
the pretty barmaids who were constantly 
working at the beer-engine. I could see all 
that passed, for the place was brilliantly 
illuminated, and I in darkness. There was a 
sprinkling of shorter gentlemen, with hair 
close cut, and smooth chins held as in a vice 
by well-starched shirt-collars. These, I ob- 
served, kept aloof a good deal, though a 
gentleman in powder would occasionally call 
one over to him, and, with noble-minded con- 
descension, permit him to dip his nose into 
his own pot. But this was seldom, for it 
was a breach of etiquette which smacked of 
the settino^ of bad precedents. The short 

O J. 



BROODING. 163 



gentlemen (whose trousers were curiously 
tight) Avere brisk in manner, and a trifle rol- 
licking, and evidently fond of a broad jest. 
The tall ones, on the other hand, were digni- 
fied and languid ; drooping over the bar like 
fragile willows, talking to each other in 
undertones, complimenting the barmaids, wdth 
suave hoTihomie ; more given to plaintive, not 
to say dyspeptic, smiles than laughter. 

* I must leave the under-servants to Jaggs/ 
I reflected, as I observed the elegant loftiness 
of their demeanour. ^ I don't understand 
them, and could never worm myself into their 
confidence.' Let us have a peep at the 
others. 

Changing my position, and approaching 
closer — for the by-streei side was shuttered 
and more secluded — I looked through a chink 
between the exiguous curtains of faded red 
moreen into the interior. The ways and man- 
ners of this part of the establishment were 
quite difi<erent from those of the other. Seats 
were provided, long tables and Windsor chairs. 
The floor was trimly sanded, and spotted by a 
multitude of spittoons. An old-fashioned 
piano occupied one corner. The bar w^as 

54—2 



1 64 BROODING. 



screened from view by curtains runninor on 
brass rods, like those of a family pew, which 
were constantly being drawn aside, with a 
click, and run back again, as the presiding 
Hebe looked in upon the company, with 
beaming face, to ask what such and such a 
gentleman had ordered. There was no stand- 
ing about or ^ wiilowing,' as in the opposite 
compartment. • A very stately gentleman, in 
evening dress — who looked like a bishop — 
smoked a meerschaum pipe in an arm-chair ; 
and others, the very pink of fashionable 
sobriety, sat in other chairs, listening, and 
throwing in a softly-modulated remark from 
time to time. The stately gentleman's voice 
could be heard in a muffled way through the 
glass. He was saying — with the wave of a 
wrist which ought to have worn ruffles — 'that 
her ladyship having dined early, and gone to 
the theater, he was able to spend a good long 
evening with his friends ;' whereupon those 
round about broke into a hum of self-gratula- 
tion. ' It was not the case so often as he 
could desire,' he went on ; ' for it w^as no- 
torious that masters and mistresses were 
impertinent tyrants, whom there was no 



BROODING. 165 



satisfying, and whom it wasn't worth while 
to try and satisfy, and whose tempers were 
distressingly short if they were kept waiting.' 

Another hum; this time of commiseration 
and approval. 

' They seem to be under the delusion/ put 
in another, who wheezed and was scant of 
breath, like Hamlet, ^ that we've nothing 
better to do than to sit outside the door in the 
draught, to be summoned. They persuade 
themselves that we're made of a commoner 
clay, though very often we're cleverer by long 
chalks. Excuse the expression, gentlemen ; 
it is not polished, I am aweer, but it's ex- 
pressive.' 

' It's the rhino that makes all the differ- 
ence, and it's a beastly shame!' blurted out 
another, who hovered between despondency 
and indignation ; but the sentiment being 
clothed in unfitting language, he was frowned 
down and subsided into melancholy. 

Then a fourth gentleman, in beautiful tur- 
quoise studs and fair whiskers, who desired to 
€ome to the rescue, remarked, with encou- 
raging hopefulness, that • there would soon be 
an end to all this nonsense. The movement for 



i66 BROODING. 



employing impoverished ladies as housemaids 
was a step in the right direction, as tending 
towards equality; their presence would dis- 
seminate a ginnysichwaio in the servants' 'all, 
which,' the speaker thought he might pre- 
sume to say, ' would be delightful. Masters 
and domestics would be on quite another 
footing by-and-by ; a footing of give-and- 
take for mutual convenience, whereby the 
one would undertake to sacrifice himself on 
Monday, if the other undertook to follow 
suit on Tuesday. As it is/ he averred, ' it's 
uncommon ^ard for 'em, thank goodness, to 
find men who will decade themselves with 
hair-powder. Powder'll go out first, and 
then liveries. Why should decent men be 
made guys of, in blue and yaller, like parrots, 
for the dirty street-boys to chaff ? One and 
all here present 'ave bin footmin in our time^ 
so it's for the good of the cloth that masque- 
rading clothes should be done away with. 
I'm 'appy to say, gentlemen,' the orator con- 
cluded, amid cheers, ' that there won't be 
much more of '' Why the devil, James, you 
blithering idiot, didn't you come sooner ? " 
Soon it'll be, '' James, if you desire to go to 



BROODING. 167 



the opera to-morrow evening, I'll make a 
point of dining at my club, and her grace will 
oblige you by having tea in her room." ' 

This prophecy, on the part of so faultlessly 
genteel a person as the speaker, opened a 
vista of advantageous changes which en- 
thralled all present, and reduced the company 
to silence. It was, indeed, a noble subject 
for meditation. They whiffed at their pipes 
without another word, gazing with solemnity 
each into his own spittoon, and taking long 
draughts from time to time, in their abstrac- 
tion, from the gin-and- water of their neigh- 
bours. 

As I strolled away, fearful of my eaves- 
dropping being noticed, I reflected that there 
was much to be done with men like these, 
who, by constant contact with a higher class, 
have picked up a smattering of accomplish- 
ments of which they are inordinately vain. 
A little knowledge, as we know, is dangerous; 
vanity a big hole in the armour. It is one of 
the glaring evils of our day, that everybody is 
trying to appear other than he really is. 
Upper servants are prone to the shov^ing off 
of second-hand airs and graces. The snub- 



i68 BROODING. 



bings which they constantly receive from 
overbearing superiors embitters them ; they 
come to look on their masters as natural 
enemies, who desire to keep them out of their 
rights, and whom it is, therefore, proper to 
circumvent by every possible means, instead 
of as friends to whom they should look up for 
advice and help, when they feel their own 
judgment to be faulty. Actuated by this 
spirit they would be easy to get round, I 
thought ; for, though they mean honestly 
enough, they have but in a small degree their 
masters' interest at heart, and would not be 
so jealous of encroachment on the part of 
strangers as the race of old servants was, 
which has, unhappily, vanished from the 
land. Established as landlord of that tavern, 
nothing would be easier than to ingratiate 
myself with these people, by working on 
their ignorance and flattering their prejudices 
■ — men who were smarting with discontent 
over what appeared to them a false position, 
and carried away beyond the line of common 
sense by the arrogance which is the handmaid 
of iofnorance. 

These evening walks did me good ; and I 



BROODING. 169 



spent most of the dark hours abroad, taking 
my rest by day, and so saw little during the 
ensuing weeks of Jaggs or Spevins, who did 
not deem it prudent to visit me by daylight. 
I rambled all over London, and many a 
strange sight I came upon. Sometimes I 
chatted with policemen on their beats, who 
were onlv too delio^hted to break the mono- 
tony of their solitary tramp by a little passing 
gossip with a wayfarer. Sometimes I crept 
down to the river-side, and fell, without 
knowing it, under the calming influence of 
the dark expanse of slowly-gliding water — 
the ghostly-flitting barges — the still masses 
of frowning buildings which towered far up 
into the night. At such moments, while 
listening to the subdued throb of the traffic 
which never ceases, that haunting vision would 
stand out like a bright speck in the surround- 
ing gloom, and I strove less and less to avoid 
looking upon it. By degrees I began to turn 
over openly in my mind the chances of Avhat 
had happened to my daughter, instead of 
striving not to think of her at all. 

' What was my Mildred doing — what was 
my Mildred doing % ' The words rang in my 



lyo BROODING. 



ears, as, leaning my cheek on the stone, I 
gazed into the botttomless black depths over 
a bridge parapet, or sat down to rest upon a 
doorstep. What was she doing — what was 
she doing ? Was she sleeping the unruffled 
sleep of youth, her lips parted by the in- 
fluence of happy dreams ? or was she wakeful 
— in pain — or sorrow ? Pray heaven that it 
might not be thus with my dear child ! Her 
father had suffered enough for an entire 
family. Surely it was fair to suppose that 
his darling might escape scot-free. Perhaps 
she was dead I As that thought came on me, 
I started ujd with a shiver, and strode on 
rapidly, a chill creeping along my bones, which 
was not due to the cold night air. And if she 
were dead, I hastened to argue, so much the 
better. What could have happened, I won- 
dered as I walked, since that fatal day 
whereon we parted % Thank God ! the 
shadow of her father's curse had never 
crossed her path. Not a soul on all the 
earth knew the dreadful truth — that she was 
a felon's child ! No ! — nor never should. I 
had had strength given me to renounce my 
name while there was yet time. How thank- 



BROODING. 171 



ful I was for that. It was the single bit of 
success in my wretched and disastrous career; 
and for that small mercy I felt a kind of half- 
scornful gratitude. 

But was I justified in supposing that all 
had gone well v/ith her ? 

If the father was to be smitten down by 
an unexpected sledge-hammer blow, why not 
the child ? Strange \ in all my self-com- 
muning the thought of my wife never 
occurred to me. We had always quarrelled — 
disliked and snarled at each other, as a dog 
snarls at a cat. She was a querulous woman 
— always wanting what she could not have — 
irritating my hot temper to boiling-pitch. 
Why should I think of my wife ? The 
remembrance of her was distasteful. She was 
a clever woman — there was no denying that. 
Forced by the circumstance of my sudden 
disappearance to bestir herself, she had, 
doubtless, been driven to throw aside her 
querulous ways, and put her shoulder to the 
wheel. How many a discontented creature 
would attain peace of mind, and cease to be 
actively disagreeable, if compelled to arise 
and work ! The thought of my wife had 



172 BROODING. 



never troubled me ; she had many friends to 
rally round her, who would see that she did 
not starve. In my memory she occupied a 
dusky place — being negatively odious, no- 
thing more. 

It was curious that in pondering about my 
child, I had hitherto thought of her as happy — 
being possessed by so strong a conviction that 
I was bearing her burden of sorrow as well as 
my own, that I was able to feel content that I 
should have severed myself from her for ever. 
But in the course of my solitary midnight 
rambles, when I began to permit myself to 
dwell upon the subject, the unwelcome possi- 
bility obtruded itself that all might not have 
gone well with Mildred ; and the fact of my 
non-existence as her father filled me with 
fitful apprehension. Here was a contingency 
which had never appealed before to my 
imagination. Her mother was ill-tempered — 
how dreadfully Avell I knew^ it! — perhaps she 
had been cruel to her child — ah, no ! that 
could not be. How could a woman — a 
mother ? No, that was not possible. But 
perhaps my wife herself had joined the 
majority, leaving the little one to the care 



BROODING. 173 



of strangers. What then \ I rose up from 
the bench on the embankment whence I had 
been watching the saffron glow upon the 
water which hinted of coming dawn, and 
hurried away to my eyrie. Like a spectre, 
the first tawny flush was the signal for me to 
vanish ; but I made up my mind, as I sped 
through the intricacies of lane and alley, that 
it behoved me (prone as I was to self-torture) 
to find out the truth about the girl. IIo^v', I 
knew not : but I would find out somethino;" — 
of that I was determined, and with as little 
delay as possible. For the thoughts with 
which I was powerless to cope were tor- 
ment — any certainty would be better than 
this new suspense. 

If I had seen Spevins I would have made 
a confidant of him — have told him that there 
was another hidden life, crusted over, but 
still existing — and have implored him to make 
such inquiries as must set my mind at rest ; 
but I did not see him, so (as we deemed it un- 
safe to communicate by letter) I was obliged 
to undertake the matter on my own account. 

It never struck me to ask myself what I 
should do if all were not well with my little 



174 BROODING. 



fairy ; to suggest to myself that ignorance is 
bliss in a case wherein the spectator has no 
power to interfere. A disembodied spectre 
condemned to disappear at cock-crow ! Such 
was my position. I was a spectre, doomed 
for a while to walk the earth — to hover 
round her I loved — without speech, unseen, 
intangible. How useless. 

I turned the matter over with extreme 
caution before deciding what to do. By this 
time I had lived five months in Black Jack 
Alley, whose listless world -worn occupants 
were too much engrossed, after the first 
instant of surprise, with the all-absorbing 
occupation of searching for a crust, to take 
much heed of me. My friend, the young 
coalheaver, fetched and carried like a valet 
with the ponderous nimbleness of a hippo- 
potamus on skates ; but I could not trust 
him with so delicate an afiair as this. For- 
bidden still to emerge by day, I must pursue 
my inquiries at night, or, at all events, after 
dark, which was mysterious and difiicult. 
There was no help for it. In the first instance, 
I must toil up to Hampstead and reconnoitre 
my old home, however painful the sight of its 



BROODING. 175 



time-worn bricks might be. Yet why should 
the contemplation of it be painful to one situ- 
ated as I was % Is it a matter of pain to the 
spirits of the departed to haunt the places 
where they moved in life ? Perhaps it is. Some 
hold that it is a portion of the punishment 
meted out by Eternal Justice to badly-behaved 
ghosts to watch those they loved on earth, and 
to know how utterly and how speedily they are 
forgotten by them. Well, I wished to be for- 
gotten. I desired nothing of my daughter, 
save to see her alive and prosperous, happy, 
in good health, and free from care ; unmindful 
of a parent of whom her reminiscences must 
be so slight. If it could be permitted to me 
to look u^Don that picture from my ambush 
once, or else upon another of a tombstone, 
(either of which would satisfy me that she 
was free from pain), I would promise never 
to regret the past. Did I regret it now % 
I would promise to shut myself up for good 
or evil in my second identity for ever, and 
never, never to come out of it ; to march 
straight onward in obedience to my compact 
with the spirits, casting no more surreptitious 
glances either to the right hand or the left. 




CHAPTEE TY. 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 




T was now the end of January^ 
when night wraps London betimes 
in a shroud of sable. I was no 
longer so close a prisoner as heretofore, for 
the fogs hung heavy over the town for days 
together, and persons with the brand on them 
made the most of those hours of impunit}^. 
Choosing such a day.. I sallied forth to com- 
mence investigations. Did I dare to go 
straight to my own home, boldly ring the 
bell, and ask the servant about its inmates ? 
Why not ? I was so changed that no friend 
of the old time would know me. There w^as 
nothing to dread. Perchance by watching 
the house I could find out all I wished to 
know. If I could only see my child — catch 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 177 

but a passing glimpse of her for an instant, 
tending her birds or intent on household 
eares, with a smile on her lips and the flush 
of health upon her cheek — the outcast would 
go away content. 

I trudged to Hampstead, the rime 
gathering upon my beard and hair ; marvel- 
ling at the changes which had taken place 
since I had lived there. Twelve years ! To 
some a lifetime of chequered excitement ; to 
others a monotonous round. Belsize Park, 
where I used to sketch with little Mildred at 
my knee, was swept clean away. It was a 
bit of real country which I used to love, Avith 
unkempt hedges, broken palings through 
* which the cows meandered as they listed; 
pollard willows, lofty elms, picturesque 
glimpses of watery ditch and crazy plank, 
such as it was a joy to transfer to paper. For 
days and days I used to sketch there, hum- 
ming the last popular tune, while Mildred, a 
splash of gaudy colour in her bright dress, 
flew in the sunlight like a butterfly, pouncing 
on a daisy or a dandelion wherewith to j^elt 
the painter, with crows of childish glee. Ah 
me ! ah me ! only twelve years ago. Could 

VOL. IIL 5 J 



178 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

it indeed be possible % Had this sad wander- 
ing spectre been a living man twelve years 
ago '? No. The place was as changed as he 
— a century must have passed since then. 
In place of cows and dandelions, I came 
upon a broad straight road, bounded on 
either side by a row of handsome villas. 
What need had I to be fearful of recognition ? 
This was another city in another hemisphere, 
that was looming through wreaths of vapour. 
Sumptuous houses, homes of wealthy men ; 
revealing in the ruddy glow of firelight, 
through tight-closed windows, glimpses of 
rare pictures, marble statues, treasures of 
ceramic art, such as in days gone by would 
have sent my young blood dancing. Where 
fields had been there were trim gardens, 
well-filled conservatories. The time I had 
been in duress must, in good sooth, have 
been a hundred years, not twelve. What 
should spectres know of time ? I, a new 
Kip Van Winkle, should find my Mildred an 
old hag- — a tottering crone, toothless and 
blind, her limbs racked by rheumatism and 
her back bent — a miracle of age. And yet 
not so. Passing beyond Belsize Park^ the 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 179 

old world aspect was as it used to be. 
Hampstead was the same as I had known it 
— as George the Third had known ifc, or good 
Queen Anne. There stood the ancient red- 
brick square, with its quaint gables and 
narrow windows, its prim white sashes and 
mouldering expanse of moss. The paved 
centre was as silent and deserted as usual, 
seeming to me, as it always did, as though 
all the dwellers there — in sacque and high- 
heeled shoe — had moved out en masse, by 
common consent, ^ to make an end on't,' and 
lie cosily down in the old churchyard close by, 
under the flamboyant gravestones and solemn 
feathery yews. The three-sided excrescences 
of wood still lurched over the thoroughfare 
from the first-floor, threatening each moment 
to slide headlong and impale upon the spikes 
below the stately dames reposing in the 
Avindow-seats. The beau-pots of greenery 
still lurked on narrov/ sills, held there by 
wires and lengths of fragile twine. How 
wrong had been my reckoning ! It was not 
a hundred years, nor even fifty, that I had 
been away. I must have slumbered over 
my sketching. It was a nightmare of a few 

55—2 



i8o IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 



seconds only, a horrible dream, from which I 
had just awakened ; and my little Mildred, 
four years old, would rush forth presently 
from yonder porch to bid her papa come in 
to dinner. There stood the house where my 
darling had been born — how strangely the 
sight of it affected me ! I felt sorry as I 
stood and stared, and withal angry, revenge- 
ful, hotly wicked. I was not dreaming. It 
was twelve years that I had been away at 
least ; the door was altered in shape, in 
colour ; there were curtains in the windows 
which I had never chosen ; creepers clinging 
to the old walls, as though they knew them 
well, which I had never planted. That was 
my house, and yet it was not mine — just as 
I was alive, and also dead. 

It came home to me as I gazed, with a 
feeling of sickness, that things were more 
different than I had supposed. Yet how 
silly I was to feel such fear. Was it likely 
that the bread-winner could go away without 
a ' By your leave,' and, coming back again 
ever so lonsr afterwards, find evervthinsf 
precisely as he left it ? How ridiculous was 
the proposition ! Did I, in my heart of hearts, 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. i8i 

expect the door to be opened by a smiling 
and repentant spouse, with an invitation to 
come in again and forget the past ? What 
did I expect — a prodigy of some kind \ If I 
was going to make a fool of myself, it would 
be better to depart while I still had my 
reason. My wife had nailed new creepers 
on the wall, had altered the hall-door. She 
was sole mistress here ; I, a stranger. Turn- 
ing to go, I looked again, and stopped. The 
curtains in the dining-room were green. As 
a hue, my wife always had the strongest 
repugnance to green. Therefore she had 
ceased to live here. Was she alive, or was 
she dead % Having trudged hither, I must 
learn something positive. Impelled by a 
force which I could not withstand, I ran 
forward and pulled the bell. 

Tremulously, with a faintness crawling 
along my limbs, I mentioned to the abigail 
my name — the old Spanish name long since 
unfamiliar to my lips, not the accursed 
English one. 

' Did anyone of that name live there ? 
No — oh no ! I did not v/ant to see those 
who dwelt there — I had been commissioned 



1 82 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

to make inquiry, nothing more, in order to — 
what ? No such people known '? Surely the 
directions I had received had been correct. 
Had no one of the name ever lived there ? 
Would the servant be so obliging as to 
inquire ? Might I step inside while she 
asked the question 'V 

^ Certainly not.' 

The woman closed the door on me — I was 
suspicious-looking, and might steal umbrellas 
— and by-and-by re-opened it. 

* A j)ainter of that name had once lived 
there/ she said, ^but he was dead, ever so 
many years ago.' 

' Was there no family V I stammered, with 
dry lips. 

She frowned, and the look of suspicion 
deepened. Was I a detective, or a detective's 
jackal ? 

' Oh yes ! There was a wife, who had 
married again,' she believed. 

' A daughter ?' 

' How was she to know — a dozen perhaps/ 
and indignant at being suspected of turning 
too keen an eye on other people's business, 
she made an effort to end the colloquy. 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 183 

* One word more, only one !' I cried, placing 
my foot between the door and the post ; ' if 
the lady were re-married, what was her name, 
and where did she live 1' 

' Well, I never !' exclaimed the noAV wrath- 
ful domestic ; ^ move away your foot, or I'll 
call master — you imperent, aggravating man, 
you ! Her name's Trevelyan, and her second 
husband (the first was a good-for-nothing lot, 
I'm told) is a harchitect.' 
' Where does he live '?' 
' How should I know — get out !' 
I removed my foot ; she slammed-to the 
door, and I heard her put the chain up. Was 
Spevins right then, and my disguise not yet 
complete % Was gaol-bird still written on 
my forehead — did my clothes exhale the 
odour of the prison-house ? Possibly. At 
all events, it behoved me to be careful. It 
was rash to have rung that bell ; still more 
so to have been so eager. How could I be 
sure that I would not be recognised ? 

Married again ! Here was new food for 
reflection. And to an architect — probably in 
a good position, then. So much the better. 
Certainly the fact of dwelling in such a sea 



1 84 IN THE NIGHT- WA TCHES. 

of hopeless wretchedness as that where I 
abode must have a tendency to make one 
morbid. I was unstrung, and had been 
exciting myself unnecessarily. Nothing could 
be more natural than the course events had 
taken, and yet I was surprised and bewildered 
as by a new shock. Trevelyan ! A good 
old name — who could he be, I wondered '? 
Not one of our acquaintances in the old time. 
Did he love Mildred ? Of course he did — 
sure, no one who knew her could help doing 
that. Mrs. Trevelyan ! How funny it 
sounded ! The first twinge over, the news 
affected me not at all. I having mysteriously 
vanished, it was only fair that she, a young 
and pretty w^oman, should marry again after 
sufficient lapse of time, if so be that she was 
lucky enough to find another who would 
endure her querulous temper. Then I 
chuckled as I wandered home — Mrs. 
Trevelyan ! A grand lady, doubtless, with 
carriages and horses. What would be her 
feelings if she could come suddenly to know 
that she was a felon's wife, and a bic^amist ? 
The wife of a ticket-of-leave man — a released 
murderer ! She had been the bane of mv 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 185 

existence during its youthful prime — how 
splendidly I could punish her by drawing 
aside the veil ! And my innocent daughter 
— did I wish, too, to punish her f What 
idle, bootless thoughts were these ! Why 
should I desire to revenge myself upon my 
wife ? Such grovelling, pett}^ spitefulness 
ill-became one who had steeled his heart 
against mankind. Mine was a lofty vengeance 
upon a race — not on an individual, and a 
woman too. Fie ! I was growing maudlin 
as well as morbid. This moping would 
never do. If only the next few weeks would 
quickly pass, and allow me to get to work in 
real earnest ! 

For several evenings after this, trying to 
forget the new intelligence, I hovered round 
the scene of our future enterprise, arranging 
details in my mind's eye — spinning imaginary 
cobwebs ; and one evening while I watched, 
was no little alarmed to be caught in the act 
of looking through the chink into the holy 
of holies of the butlers. As I peered in, 
two men issued through the swing-door, and 
almost brushed me with their coats as they 
went by. 



I Z6 IN THE NIGHT- WA TCHES. 

^ He's a good sort/ one was saying. ^ It's 
a pity he gives up the place. I'm sure we've 
given him all our patronage, but some fellars 
never know their advantao:es till it's too late. 
Many a time when missus 'as 'ad the megrims, 
and 'as gone upstairs early, I've sent up the 
barley-water tray before my lady's lady 'as 
'ad time to comb out 'er 'air, which, as you 
know, ain't decent in a well-ordered 'ouse, in 
order to come and patronise this man for 
'alf-an-hour before closing-time. I've some- 
times moved the clock on to make my lady 
go to bed. And do you suppose he's grate- 
ful ? Not 'e 1 'E's respectful, I must allow, 
and we can't expect more, for human natur's 
as poor and weak as this chap's liquor. It's a 
pity 'e's agoin', for we don't know 'oo's comin'.' 

^ It don't matter,' his companion replied 
^ He's low — deuced low. Poppilar enough 
with the footmin and sich like sprats, becos' 
too familiar, but he won't do for gentlemin 
like us. We want some think here more 
like ourselves — something elligong and 
digadgy, more suited to the society of ^' the 
room." Ain't it a curous thing — you must 
have remarked it — how the style of conversa- 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 187 

tion changes when, after tart, we leave the 
servants' 'all and muv' to cheese. It's quite 
different and refreshing. Mrs. 'Ousekeeper 
opens out like a flower, and as for my lady's 
lady, she perks up and enlivens the board. 
I was obliged to tell this fellar t'other day, 
that, though respectful and that, he wasn't 
up to the mark of his sitiwation. He looked 
downcast and hurt, and mumbled somethink 
behind his hand about man being made to 
err ; and I was sorry for him, for we must 
be lenient to those below us. So I replied : 
''That's jest where it is," I says. ''You 
mean for the best, I know. P'raps man was 
made to err," I says. " But if you wants 
to err," I says, " you must go and err some- 
where else, my man," I says.' 

The speakers passed wuthout observing 
the secret watcher, and I breathed again ; 
but though they were too deep in talk to 
heed me, the adventure taught me a lesson. 
I must shun the district for the present, or 
else they Avould say, later on, with nudges — 
this gentleman victualler is the loafer we 
have seen about ; and, in an enterprise like 
ours, to be suspected was to be lost. Oh, 



1 88 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

those weary, weary days and nights ; would 
there never be an end of them ? What was 
I to do ? How apply my mind ? I yearned 
for the old quarry-work — for the nursing of 
malingerers in hospital — for anything, any 
object whereunto to pin my energies. The 
stagnation which was clothing me ia lichen, 
permitted me to brood over myself and 
mine, and over the new discovery which I 
would so gladly have put away. Once busy, 
thorough occupation would banish the medi- 
tations that disturbed my serenity — that tor- 
mented my waking hours in a manner which 
was new and perilous. 

Thus Mrs. Trevelyan and her husband, 
and my Mildred, would keep dancing fan- 
dangoes in my brain, and I had no weapon 
wherewith to chase them thence. In 
obedience to a whim, which I deprecated 
whilst I succumbed to it, I strode into a 
public-house, and asking for a directory, 
puzzled out the architects. Trevelyan. 
There Avas only one, and he dwelt on a 
terrace near Primrose Hill. This must be 
his house — her home. This man must be 
her husband. While sipping a pint of ale. 



JN THE NIGHT-WATCHES, 189 

I marvelled what manner of man he was ; 
young or old, short or tall, good-tempered or 
the reverse. It would be something to do to 
watch that house and gain a surreptitious 
glimpse of its inmates. I resolved, despite 
the warning of reason, to reconnoitre, but 
determined to be very careful — to ring no 
bells, make no inquiries. The outcast must 
be content dumbly to watch, night after night 
if need were^ to roam around under cover of 
friendly mists. He must court the shadows 
and be prepared to flee before a breath. All 
the while I knew how dangerous this 
whimsey was, how idle — how wroth Spevins 
and his pals would be if ever they came to 
hear of my folly ; but I could not help it. 
Argue with myself as I would, I could not 
resist the impulse to learn something of the 
ways of the new family. The time had to 
be passed somehow. In a week or two, 
when quarantine was ended, so should my 
folly end. A power, stronger than my wall, 
goaded me on meanwhile, before which I 
was as an autumn leaf. 

It is a long step from Black Jack 
Alley to Primrose Hill ; and it v/as late 



igo IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

upon a certain evening in January that I 
came upon the terrace which I sought. A 
compact, yellow, bald-faced mansion, with big 
plate-glass windows, in form of bay, and a 
few yards of scrubby bushes fenced in by a 
monstrous balustrade between the windows 
and the road. So this was the home of my 
widow and our child ; a comfortable-looking 
home, if a trifle vulgar ; more ostentatious 
and j)onderous in its show of comfort than 
the dear, crumbling, old-fashioned house in 
Hampstead Square. There were flower- 
boxes of garish tiles on every ledge, which 
seemed to scream out, ' Look at me !' and 
these set me thinking. 

My wife, disagreeable in all other respects, 
was gifted with a sensitive feeling for colour. 
How changed must she be to endure those 
flower-boxes ! Or was it that she was no 
longer the ' grey mare/ and that she was 
obliged to put up with what she did not like ? 
And if she had found her master, was it 
for good or evil ? Had he, exorcising the 
evil spirit, transformed her into a good wo- 
man, or was she become a devil ? As these 
conjectures flitted past my mental sight, I 



IN THE NIGHT WATCHES. 191 

stared at the hideous flower-boxes, fasci- 
nated. 

What a jDretty one was Ebenezer Ander- 
son to prate of vulgarity or comfort, or take 
exception to trifles with fastidious taste ! It 
seemed as thouo^h renewed contact with the 
world were reviving the old Adam, for it had 
never struck me to criticise the architecture 
of the penal cells, or to find fault with the 
square many- v/ind owed blocks of Pentonville 
or Millbank. I lounged on the opposite side 
of the way, endeavouring to read the details 
of the economy within upon the bald-faced 
house-front ; and watched the illuminated 
white wdndow-blinds, hoping to detect what 
I panted to learn by black shadow-pictures 
moving on their surface. But it was ap- 
parently a well-managed house, where every- 
thing was arranged with decorum. No 
dishevelled housemaids scurried up areas and 
Avhisked back again ; no men-servants issued 
thence to hob and nob in neighbouring 
taverns. There was no information to be 
gained by staring at the mansion. Verily, 
my widow must be an altered woman ! 

The less I discovered, the more absorbed 



192 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

did I become ; the more anxious to learn some- 
thing positive before dismissing the subject 
for ever from my mind. Night after night 
I watched those windows, from behind angles 
or from within porticoes, lest the constable 
on the beat should observe me. Not that he 
troubled himself much about this decorous 
terrace, or that it troubled him. It was a 
well-mannered square-toed terrace. He was 
able to guess, by some occult method of his 
own, when the inspector was likely to come 
round. At other times he burrowed some- 
where, and emerged when wanted, wiping his 
lips after a luxurious fashion that I envied, 
for it was bitter cold, and I, for my part, 
was well-nigh frozen. 

One nig^ht. Two nis^hts. Three nio^hts. 
For aught I learned I might as well have 
been shivering in Siberia ; and would have 
done better to stop at home, abandoning the 
idiotic quest, but for the benefit which accrued 
from exercise and fresh air. Now and then a 
shade would flit across a blind, and I would be 
on tenter-hooks. The shade of a snub-nosed 
maid-servant, which told me nothing, and was 
gone. If I were to get inflammation of the 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 193 

lungs, it would serve me right for my foolish- 
ness. Sure no boy bleating sonnets to his 
lady's eyebrow was ever more irrational than 
this grizzled, careworn watcher. What a 
good thing it was that Jaggs and Spevins 
had relaxed their surveillance ! The King 
of Trumps was behaving like a knave. The 
goose who was to lay the Qgg of gold was 
waddling in dangerous pastures. 

Yet, after all, there was no risk. The 
squaretoed terrace seemed to have overeaten 
itself, to be comatose with repletion, to toss 
its silk bandanna over its face and go to 
sleep. At the regularly appointed hour the 
lights were turned out ; all was darkness ; all 
was still. 

But on the fourth evening the monotony 
of regular habit was broken. Peering from 
my refuge I stared with all my eyes, for un- 
accustomed lights flickered in one window 
and then another ; there was an unusual stir. 
A blind on the ground-floor was pulled up 
hastily by a small hand, and as hastily pulled 
down again. There was a waving of arms 
against the light, a noise of loud voices 
raised in violent discussion, a clatter as of 

VOL. III. h^ 



194 J^ 1HE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

the upsetting of heavy furniture. I wondered 
what this could portend ; whether anyone 
was ill, or whether there had been an accident 
or a quarrel. Perhaps my wife's temper, 
disimproved rather than the reverse, had 
broken out, to the detriment of the family 
peace. The constable was invisible. YN^hat 
was I to do ? Perchance somebody would 
come out in search of a doctor ; some one 
whom I could interrogate Avhilst offering 
assistance. 

Nobody came out. The squall subsided. 
The lights were turned down by-and-by as 
usual, and nothing could be more primly 
quiet. How exasperating ! The wanderer, 
disappointed, was about to resume his 
rambles, when his sharpened hearing de- 
tected in the frosty air the clicking of a lock. 
He withdrew into a shadowed angle to 
watch. Yes ! there was something amiss 
within the bald-faced mansion after all ; one 
eye was open under the silk bandanna. 
The hall-door moved ajar, and was shut 
to with care ; and a shrouded figure glided 
rapidly away, round the corner, down the 
incline, and disappeared in Pegent's Park. 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES, 195 

Who could the figure be, and where could 
it be gomg at that hour ? It was close on 
midnight, and the snow lay thick. The 
figure was tall and slender. ^ It is a girl — it 
must be a girl !' I muttered, while, as I 
stealthily pursued, my heart beat fast. 
Tinder the trees — black as Erebus aofainst 
the snow — I lost sight of the figure ; then it 
flashed forth again, gliding across the open, 
past the Zoological Gardens, whence weird 
and dismal noises issued, unearthly cries 
and muffled groans and howls — enough in 
the solitude to make a nervous woman 
shrink. But that girlish figure did not 
shrink. It moved steadily along, so fast 
that I had much ado to follow it, till it 
came to the canal bridge which leads by 
way of Albany Street into the London roar 
again. 

The girl stood for a moment as though 
undecided, and then vanished. Good 
heaven ! had she leaped into the water % 
No ; passing through a gap in the paling she 
had approached the water's brink, and was 
speeding along the towing-path, more slowly 
now, to Avhere a clump of brushwood and 

r I* o 



196 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 



young trees concealed the water from the 
road. There, glancing hastily round, she sat 
down. A peculiar time, I thought, to select 
for al-fresco meditation, and in a hard frost, 
too. Stealing along, as though stalking 
game, nearer and nearer, I crept from tree to 
tree unobserved, and, the enveloping drapery 
tossed aside, I could make out two white 
arms and a billow of flaxen hair. 

Regardless of the nipping frost, the girl 
sat upon the snow, wringing her hands from 
time to time, and moaning, whilst I leaned 
my hot head against a tree, and watched her. 
So did the cold twinkling eyes of heaven 
watch her, bright, pallid, blinking, countless 
eyes; so did the sparse, purblind lamps which 
threw zigzag reflections of dim red upon the 
frozen water, whose dark serpent-length 
coiled out of sight into the mist, lined with a 
wan stripe of towing-path. Beyond the 
canal, rising abruptly from the bank, 
stretched the Park's indefinite expanse, 
broken by what seemed to be phantom 
armies encamped upon a plain. Not a 
bou2fh waved of the trees above, whose 
shade encompassed us ; not a creature 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES: 197 

stirred. In the centre of vast brawling 
London nature slumbered ; so did the tower- 
ing squadrons on the shadowy camping- 
ground. But away from the oasis of peace, 
London fretted still. The murmur of its 
ceaseless babble came dimly on the ear ; the 
monotony of its faint flow broken now and 
again by the crisp whirr and shriek of a fly- 
ing train, whose rattle sounded sharp, like 
pistol-cracks, as it reeled and tore away ; and 
ever and anon the tinkle of distant music 
was wafted in fragments on the air— in 
token that, in this narrow antechamber of 
ours, life and death, and joy and sorrow, and 
mirth and pain must jostle shoulder to 
shoulder, side by side — incongruous pla}?- 
mates, some in rags and some in satins — till 
the folding-doors are flung wide which lead 
to the Grand Saloon, whence those in un- 
festive gear will be excluded. 

After a while the girl got up, and, glancing 
timidly behind, sped onward as if the 
babbling roar were yet too near for one who 
had that to do which none but the stars 
might see ; and as I followed like a sleuth- 
hound upon thfe track, the same odd sensa- 



198 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

tion stole over me as had weighed me down 
when I first arrived at Dartmoor. 

This girl and I had left the world — so it 
seemed — when, leaving the highway, we had 
made across the snow, whose crmnbling soft- 
ness mufEed our footsteps and made them 
without sound. We stood alone too^ether 
facing eternity. How deep were those 
frozen waters, how thick the layer that 
covered them ? As if in answer to my 
thought the girl stood on the extreme verge, 
and placed a foot upon the ice. It was thin 
and brittle, and gave way with a report 
which echoed, as I fancied, for miles in 
warning. A place had opened invitingly ; a 
black secret door. One moment of resolution. 
A leap in trusting faith, and the threshold 
would be past. A jump through the hole, 
a deadened plash, a few seconds of buiFeting. 
Nothing would be left to tell the tale save 
foot-prints in the snow. Nay ! no trace at 
all, for featherv atoms were floatino- down, 
fleckinp^ our clothes with white : ere mornins: 
the sheet of snow would be even, white, un- 
sullied. Only when the frost should break 
— that might be weeks hence — two nameless 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES, 199 

bodies would come to light, miles away, after 
drifting under the crust — why not out to the 
sea? Meanwhile the twinkling orbs above 
-would mark their progress, and murmur one 
to another. The dull eyes of the sickly 
lamps, when they blinked forth each day at 
dusk, would strain after them in vain. The 
soughing trees would nod their stately heads 
and point out the spot, with crooked fingers, 
which had been reached on the mysterious 
voyage ; and, sighing, whisper of the secret 
which was confided to their keeping by the 
stars. 

A superstitious impression took hold of 
me that I might not be predestined for the 
role of an avenger after all ; that perhaps the 
spirits had been making sport of me — had 
schemed in their malice to turn me out upon 
the world battered, bruised — much worse — 
purposeless, as a sport for their malignity, 
and that some higher power had taken me in 
hand, bidding me escape from their spell at any 
cost. It was certain that I had battled hard 
against the mystic agency which had forced 
me to delve among buried days ; but I was 
driven, despite myself, to act against my 



200 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

judgment ; driven to hang about a house from 
contact with whose inmates I had every 
cause to shrink ; driven to dog this girl across 
the snow as far as this sohtary spot by the 
dark waters — for what purpose ? Were we 
to make the plunge together, and advance 
side by side to meet our Maker face to face 
— or was it 

She moved again ; dipped a foot into the 
water through the hole she had made, and 
shrank again upon the ground. Impelled 
by the same inscrutable force which had 
urged me on this adventure, I left my lurking- 
place and stood by her side. She recoiled 
with a subdued scream ; examined me 
with startled looks ; then buried her face in 
both quivermg hands, and sobbed as if her 
heart was breaking. 

Great heaven ! Instinct had not deceived 
me I There was no mistakins: that face» 
though it seemed a lifetime since I had seen 
it. It was the face of my child — older, 
thinner, paler, but the same. Those w^ere 
the blue eyes which had haunted me in 
dreams and waking visions ; that was her 
long fair hair, not so golden as it used to be. 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 20 r 

but as fine and silken. A^las 1 alas ! how 
wobesfone a face. This was she whom I had 
hoped to find trilling little snatches of glad 
airs, as with gleesome visage she tended her 
favourite birds. She was unhappy. Good 
God ! she was meditating suicide ! Then the 
burthen that had crushed the humanity out of 
me, and left nought in my w^rung heart but 
the lees of revenge and wickedness, was not 
heavy enough, after all, though I was ground 
to powder by its weight ! I was not bearing 
a double burthen, for my darling as well as. 
for myself She, too, w^as given one to carry, 
which had hollowed her cheek and marked her 
young brow with lines. There are thrilling 
moments of such agony in the lives of some 
of us as would kill if they endured longer 
than a second, when the sky turns to sable 
and the sun to blood. In such an access of 
despair I longed to seize her hands, saying : 
^ Mildred, you are right. Young though you 
be, you have arrived at the same goal as I, 
by a different route. You have led me here ; 
our way stands plain before us. We will 
leap together through yonder opening into 
light and peace beyond.' 



202 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

The gust passed as it came, and my brain 
whirled and my heart banged withinmy breast. 
It was dead, that heart. Why then should 
it quiver thus ? ' my God !' my soul 
cried in a great yearning ; — ' surely not this 
young life, which has but dawned upon the 
w^orld that I used to think so beautiful ! 
Any sacrifice but this ! May not my travail 
count for something ? I will repent — will 
bend my stubborn knees and grovel in the 
dust. My life — take mine — and pass it 
through and through the flames. I will be 
brave. I have suffered much, and can yet 
endure for her sake. Spare her life — take 
mine — and thus shall both be blessed !' 

But how vain were such prayers. Had 
I not yet learned the bitter lesson — not even 
yet ? The cold stars blinked down as scorn- 
fully as ever. What mercy had been shown 
to me that I should expect compassion now 1 
The roots of hope are strong ; its tendrils 
tough. For m3^self, hope had been entombed 
long since ; for her it yet survived. How 
could I save her ? The cup of my bitterness 
was full and overflowed. I was absolutely 
powerless to help her in any way, for I was 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 203 

a flitting unsubstantial ghost, compelled to 
look on the throes of one I loved better than 
myself, without being able to grasp her with 
my filmy hand. 

She was still examining, with terror in her 
eyes, the world-worn apparition who had 
appeared upon her path, and cowered away 
with a fresh start of fear, when, looking 
down, I whispered the one word, ' Mildred.' 

' My name,' she murmured. ' I do not 
know you, nor knew that I was followed. 
If you were sent after me, have pity — oh, 
have pity ! I cannot go back !' she cried, 
clinging wildly to my arm, ^ I will not. I 
came here to die, but am too great a coward. 
I am young — so very young ! Say I am 
drowned and dead, and I swear that they shall 
never see me any more.' 

Had she then come to this, the blithesome 
fairy, the sunbeam ? How singular that in 
prison I should always have thought of her 
as happy ! Had it not been so, could the 
victim have borne his torture % would he 
not rather have dashed out his brains against 
the wall ? Who might say whether it was 
well that he had not made an end of it ? for 



204 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

thouofli he hovered near his darhngc now — so 
near as to feel her breath, he could do no more 
to save her in this strait than if he were sleep- 
ing in the prison grave-yard. What was to be 
the fate of either ? Father and child were 
equally forlorn — a pair of wandering waifs. 

^ I dare not die,' the girl went on. ^ I am 
afraid to look on God. I seemed to see Him 
frowning at me when I broke the ice just 
now. I will go away, far out of reach.' 

* Whither will you go, Mildred V I mur- 
mured. The name hung so tenderly about 
my lips, that she trembled in every limb. 
Poor thing ! apparently she was little used 
to tenderness. 

' Who are you V she whispered with awe. 
' Who are you, who speak to me like that ? 
I have never seen you — never ! but the 
tones of your voice recall something, which I 
seem to have heard in some former life. You 
are not sent by them ? No — I am sure I never 
saw that face before, thousfh I have heard 
the voice ;' and in deep despondency she 
bes^an to wrinsf her hands too-ether. 

' You are unhappy V I asked, advancing a 
step. 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 205 

^ Oh, liow unhappy !' she echoed. 

' Why ? Is your mother cruel to you V 

She glanced up with a quick look of dis- 
trust. Who was this strange-looking man 
that knew her name, and yet knew nothing 
more ? But the look faded as she sighed : 

' My mother is hard and indifferent, but 
not cruel, and yet ' 

^ Your stepfather ' 

* Oh, do not speak of him,' she implored, 
as she rocked herself to and fro. ' He beat 
me to-night till my pride rose in arms, and 
my mother said nothing in my defence^ 
It is not her fault ! She can't help it ; she's 
dull and stupefied.' And then the gates of 
her pent-up wretchedness were opened, and 
forgetting the surroundings and the mys- 
terious listener, she poured forth a recital 
of niuch misery, addressing her speech to the 
scornful stars, whose light glimmered on her 
upturned features. 

I was right in supposing that by a second 
marriage my wife had found a master. 
After my departure she had lifted up her 
voice and called Heaven to witness how 
ill-used she was ; had battened on the griev- 



2o6 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

ance which was a delicious kixury to one as 
querulous as she. 

She chid her daughter with harsh words 
because she sorrowed for the vanished one 
whose disappearance was a nine days' 
wonder. Time ^Dassed. The widow's weeds 
were discarded. She married Mr. Trevelyan, 
and from that moment became another 
woman. She dared not utter a complaint or 
call her life her own, for the second husband 
was a stern harsh man who brooked no voice 
but one within his house, and who had a 
rough- fisted method of asserting his authority. 
For a while the fatherless girl avoided direct 
ill-usage, by holding herself aloof; but when 
in rapid succession Mrs. Trevelyan gave 
birth to three children, the position of the 
sole offspring of the first marriage became 
untenable. Hers was the place of Cin- 
derella, to whose awkwardness every acci- 
dent was attributed. It Avas made plain 
that in that sumptuous menage she had no 
right to expect a home. A daily butt for 
paroxysms of ill-temper, a target for foul 
language and abuse and even blows, she 
threatened to run away, and was told with 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 207 



coarse gibes that it would be well for her to 
do so, since her existence was a mistake. 
Having none with whom to take counsel, 
and feeling utterly alone, she dreaded to put 
her threats in execution, till at last on this 
very night, having retired to her chamber 
sore and bruised, and driven to bay, she had 
said to herself that her stepfather was right 
— she cumbered the earth, and must go off 
it. But at the culminating moment her 
resolution had failed ; she dared not fling 
away the treasure which had been intrusted 
to her keeping, but would live — if Heaven 
so willed it^ — passing a secluded life in some 
remote corner where none should find her 
out. 

' Whither will you go X I repeated. This 
hapless stray knew not the hardness of the 
world ! 

' It is of little moment whither,' was her 
reply ; then, seeming to remember where she 
was, she again inquired, timidly, what I knew 
of her, and how I had learned her name. 

^ Your own father,' I rephed, evasively. 
' Do you remember him '?' 

' Ah, my father !' she repeated, sighing 



2o8 TN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

deeply. *" If he had hved ! if he had Hved ! 
But he died when I was quite a child — a 
tiny, heedless creature, who could not know 
his worth.' 

* His worth ! Was he a good man V 

^ Good ! Oh, how good and kind !' she 

replied, under her breath. ^ I can recall 

dimly long summer days spent in the open 

air with him ; when I wove flower- wreaths 

and daisy-chains, and chased the booming 

drao^on-flies, while he carolled over his work. 

^ . . . 

And then his intimates — how they missed 

and regretted him ! though he was fiery and 

easily provoked, yet it was over in a moment, 

and they loved him none the less. Ah, my 

poor father !' 

* And you also loved him V It required all 
iiiy strength of will to control a growing 
hoarseness in my voice. * He died, you say. 
Do you know the manner of his death, or 
where he sleeps V 

' Do you f Mildred retorted, clutching my 
wrist with abrupt vehemence. ' You do — I 
see you do ! Tell me of him. Is he indeed 
dead, as I was told ? My mother was always 
silent on the subject when she was sure that 



IN THE NIGHT- IV A TCHES. 209 

he was never coming back. Yet I always 
hoped that some day he might return. It 
was so strange that I could gain no tidings.' 

^ Then you sought for him V 

' Yes, in secret — only a year ago. I tried 
to find some clue ; to discover where he lies 
buried. But what could an inexperienced 
girl like me hope to do when my elders 
failed ?' 

^ A foolish dream/ I responded, gloomily, 
' which you did well to put away. Alive, 
forsooth ! Why should he have left his 
home, have left his only child, if he was so 
good and loving ? Was he guilty, think you, 
of any crime such as would leave him no 
choice but to abscond ?' 

' A crime ! My father V 

There was such a sublimity of indignant 
faith in the girl's accents that I winced as 
though I had been struck. 

* You have sought in vain,' I said. ' From 
my lips you may hear the truth. Yes, your 
father is dead. He died twelve years ago. 
I was at the burial.' 

There must have been something solemn 
in my tone, as with my daughter by my 

VOL. in. 57 



2IO IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

side, and my gaze fixed on the ice-hole, I 
set her doubts at rest. She moaned and 
shuddered, and so did I. For in a wild pro- 
cession of dusky wraiths, who laughed and 
gibbered as they swept fleeting across the 
plain of snow, I saw the frightful years and 
their events ; and the last figure — the Present 
— was the most hideous of them all. Why 
had we not leapt together through the ice 
before Reason had caught us in her grip ? 
What a grim Present ! and what a gruesome 
Future did he show me in his mirror as he 
flew by ! Vow as I would that my first self 
was buried, Avith what persistency did its 
spectre refuse to be exorcised ! Betwixt my 
second self and Mildred lay the gulf which 
I had digged. If I attempted to bridge it, I 
should drag her to the bottom. 

But it was clear that it must not be 
bridged. Those accents of pride told me 
that plainly ; and how pigheaded and besotted 
a dolt was I to suppose for a moment that it 
could be bridged ! I did not really suppose 
it ; but we cannot resist dallying sometimes 
with a yearning which we know, deep down 
within us, may never become fact. That 



IN THE NIGHT- IV A TCHES. 211 



trouble undeserved should have darkened my 
darlinof's life as well as mv own, did not tend 
to incline my mood to softness. Injustice 
— horrible injustice pervades the universe ! 
Each fibre of my being howled the words 
aloud, and clamoured in deafening chorus at 
the feet of the Eternal. 

Was this innocent child to be tossed into 
the lions' den, to be torn piecemeal by the 
beasts who had rent me — a strong man — in 
sunder ? My mission was to plunge daggers 
in the hearts of those who presumed to be 
prosperous. The world had made of me a 
criminal — had branded me with the brand 
whose marks might never be effaced. Be it 
so. I would act as a criminal ; in that 
should my vengeance lie. 

But this child — was she to sink into the 
slough ? I had prayed not. Yet I could 
not see — peer as I would after the flying 
phantoms — what other fate could lie in store 
for her. Destiny had willed that she should 
be goaded to leave home — alone, and in the 
night — to fling herself upon the tender 
mercies of the world of London. She was 
eminently handsome, tall and developed be- 

57—2 



212 IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. 



yond her age — what would her certain fate 
be if she wandered forth into the streets ? 

On the other hand, I, her natural pro- 
tector, had been by occult agency sent to her 
relief. What a relief 1 What cruel mockery ! 
All I could do for the girl would be to drag 
her at once to the bottom of the chasm, which 
otherwise she would reach by stages. Jaggs 
and Spevins were fit companions for such as 
she ! Ha, ha ! She would probably, in 
course of time, become the bride of Spevins 
or one of the rest — a pretty prospect truly ! 
How much better that here, under cover of 
the night, I should with my own hands 
plunge her into the ice-grave which she her- 
self had made. Why should I slirink % My 
fingers were already stained with blood. It 
w^as the kindest thing that I could do for the 
felon's daughter. 

Already she looked to me for protection. 
The man who had known her father — who 
had, he declared, been present at his burial — 
was surely the one to help the child in a 
moment of sore jeopardy. Help ! With 
what a scoffing jar did the word twang upon 
my nerves ! Where was I to take her to \ 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES. ■ 213 

To Black Jack Alley — pending removal to 
the tavern. Well, at least I could promise 
that she would no more be beaten. I could 
not leave her in the snow ; neither could I 
stay. 

The red sun was forcing his face through 
the night-fog, turning to a ghastly hue the 
jaundiced lamps. It was time for the spectre 
to flit : we had parleyed already till the 
blood of both stood still. 

^You decide to live,' I said^ hurriedly. 
' How will you live % To whom will you go ? 
Have 3^ou any money f 

A look of troubled amazement passed over 
the fair young face, as she answered simply : 

^ When I came out I w^as intent upon 
going where none is required. I have no 
money, and no friends.' 

^ I, too, am friendless,' I returned. ' Will 
you go with me ? I dwell in a shameful 
quarter, whose existence should rain curses 
on the rich — in a place where starvation stalks 
abroad naked, where sorrow has her dwelling. 
If you elect to go with me till something can 
be done, you shall not starve, and you will 
be safe ; but you may not be spared from 



214 ^^ 1HE NIGHT-WATCHES. 

looking in the face of misery. In a day or 
two we will see what can be arranged. Do 
you dare to trust yourself with me 1' 

She searched my lineaments, and, smiling, 
placed a tiny hand in mine. 

' I look in your stern face,* she mur- 
mured, ^ and in its haggard lines it wears the 
dignity of sorrow. For years I have been 
miserable myself — so I know how to grieve 
for the misery of others. Yes, I will trust 
myself with you — for my dead father's sake/ 

^ So be it ! For your dead father's sake,' I 
whispered solemnly ; and as we w^alked hand 
in hand together in the golden glow of dawn, 
my sight was blurred by unaccustomed tears. 







CHAPTEE Y. 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 




Y the time we reached Tower Hill it 
was broad day, and, the momentary 
excitement passed which was bred 
of some hazy belief in mystic agency, I 
regretted the folly which had suggested my 
bringing Mildred to such a spot. In all 
London there was none more foul. Yet how 
could I have acted otherwise, being placed 
between the Scylla of the dark canal and the 
Charybdis of my squalid hiding-place ? For 
the time beinof there was no other course 
than that I was pursuing. So soon as it was 
possible she must be removed, must be sent 
away to some more fitting home, leaving me 
to prepare for my new career. As we walked 
along in silence, hand in hand, I turned over 



2i6 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

all this in my mind. For many reasons she 
must be got rid of. She must never have a 
suspicion of my relationship towards her, or 
else she would recoil from me ; and that was 
more than I felt called upon to bear. I 
gazed at the girl in the increasing light, and 
marked with misgiving her tall, rounded 
figure, her deep blue eyes, and profusion of 
fair hair. She must not be thrown into 
temptation as I had been. Whatever else I 
might come to have upon my conscience, it 
must never be said that I had led my own 
child into a vortex of crime. And that it 
was a vortex of crime into which I was pre- 
paring to plunge, I attempted in nowise to 
conceal from myself The line I had chosen, 
wilfully, was one of the most base. Not 
only was I to sin myself, but the ruling idea 
of my existence was to be the decoying of 
others into sin. I was to place myself upon 
the level of the dishonest pawnbroker, the 
receiver of stolen goods, the practised ' fence.' 
Dragging my advantages in the mire, I was 
to employ all the arts which culture and 
education afforded me to seduce men less 
favoured mentally than I, to their undoing. 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 217 



It was a dastardly line that I had delibe- 
rately selected, and, sore as I was, I gloried 
in its dastardliness. The more I degraded 
myself, the greater would the reproach be 
to those who had caused me to degrade 
myself. 

By a distorted line of reasoning, I consi- 
dered that the sins I should commit would 
lie at the door of others, that my blood 
would be on their heads, that the blackening 
of my own soul would go to the tarnishing of 
theirs. A thirst for vengeance had given 
me strength to live ; had kept my brain from 
softening ; had supplied my barren mind 
with food for contemplation. I was Cain, 
with the brand on my flesh of a lifelong 
punishment. Being hopelessly and utterly 
disgraced and beaten down^ I was to fight — 
to stab in the dark — since I was too weak 
for open war. 

Well ! I was preparing myself to do as 
much harm as possible ; was furbishing my 
wits for the timely detection of such pitfalls 
as might lead to too speedy detection ; and 
when my time should arrive, which it was 
certain to do some day, T hoped to have the 



2i8 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

satisfaction of reflecting that I had not 
wielded the lance in vain. 

This was clear enough to be satisfactory to 
my mind. My determination was fixed, and 
I had no thought of changing it. But I felt 
an invincible repugnance, at which I mar- 
velled, at the idea of my daughter assisting 
in the mission, even though she, too, had 
been hardly used. As I looked at her pale 
childish face — serene now that she considered 
herself protected — I kept repeating to myself, 
over and over again, that she must be con- 
signed to cleaner hands than her unhappy 
father's. But where was she to go ? To 
whose care could I consign her ? With grim 
cynicism I looked around me, and acknow- 
ledged that my second self possessed no ally 
who did not wear the badge of criminal. 
And whose fault was that ? Not mine. No, 
no ! not mine ! 

Now and again it struck me that perchance 
her nature was stronger than mv own. Until 
the moment wiien extreme anguish forged 
my soul anew, I was a creature of impulse ; 
it did not seem thus with Mildred. She was 
evidently very proud ; and, at a pinch, could 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 219 

be determined probably. There was a twist 
which suggested energy about her ripe red 
lips, and a straightness of eyebrow which 
spoke of courage. Perhaps she might be 
able to resist temptation — might be able to 
live unsullied in the midst of murky sur- 
roundings — and yet, not so. She must be 
shielded from such a danger — must be placed 
in proper keeping ere she should come to 
know too much of me and my intentions. 
But how ? Think as I would, and scheme as 
I would, I always returned to the same 
point. It was exasperating to feel so impo- 
tent, and I gnashed my teeth for very help- 
lessness. 

As we dived into a dark ill-smellino^ 
passage, I turned to see if she were fright- 
ened. No. With compressed lips she fol- 
lowed me with j)erfect trust, ^ for her dead 
father's sake ;' and as we threaded one foetid 
alley after another, picking a way among 
dusky knots of sprawling children, though 
her brow was contracted, her step never 
faltered. 

In one greasy court, redolent of evil 
savours, whose entrance was well-nigh choked 



220 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

by a baked-potato-van, we were assailed by 
gibes and hoots from a posse of al-fresco 
gamblers, who, squatting among stray lettuce- 
leaves and egg-shells, were whiling away the 
morning with games of dominoes, while a 
ring of excited backers betted halfpence. 
Street-boys of the horse-holding class they 
were, conspicuous for frowsy hair and greasy 
bandless hats, and clothes made for their 
great-grandfathers. They received us with a 
volley of quips and broad coarse jests; then, 
disappointed that we made no retort, returned 
to their all- engrossing play again. Mildred 
turned a trifle paler, and drew her clocik 
more close about her shoulders ; but she 
followed me still — without a word. 

By-and-by we reached Black Jack Alley, 
and paused on the threshold of the quaintly- 
constructed house wherein I dwelt, and 
Mildred looked up at it with a tinge of 
amused surprise. It was a peculiar house to 
look at, certainly. All kinds of ill-fitting 
doors opened by means of nailed straps, or 
bits of webbing (the handles had rotted oft" 
long since), upon all kinds of irregular steps 
— which steps had been designed by an artist 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 221 

of superior iDgeiiuity specially as snares, 
with the intent to trip you headlong ; while 
the doors seemed expressly designed to block 
each other up and prevent those who lived 
within from getting either in or out. 

We floundered up to the second- floor^ 
cautious as to traps in the way of clothes- 
lines stretched backwards and forwards across^ 
the stairs, and pushing my door open, I 
ushered Mildred in, and announced that for 
the present this was my home and hers ; and 
that the gentleman on his knees before the 
grate was my friend and neighbour. 

The brawny young coalheaver — for it was 
he — rose to his feet, and a blush seemed to 
glow through the grime upon his visage as 
he stared, first at me, then at the new- 
comer. I was a mystery, quite beyond his 
homely power of unriddling; one calculated 
to puzzle clearer brains than his. As time 
went on, the mysterious element rolled into 
a greater volume instead of diminishing. I 
had arrived in that dismal place with curiously 
short hair, which I forthwith allowed to 
sprout. I was not indigent, but had well- 
to-do allies, who broug^ht o'ood thino^s and 



2?2 A STRUGGLE WITH AN IXCUBUS. 



feasted and caroused. I hardly ever "went 
out by daylight, but prowled about in the 
night ; and yet I had no weapons, never 
brought home spoil, wandered in an aimless 
fashion which pointed me out rather as a 
dreamer than a robber ; and now I came home, 
in a matter-of-fact sort of way, bringing with 
me a young person who, though plainly 
attired, was evidently a lady. The worthy 
young fellow could not make it out. He 
stood first on one leg, then on the other, 
twisting in his dirty fingers a still dirtier 
cap ; then remarked, clearing his throat, that 
the lady was welcome, he was sure, and 
plunging like a bull through the doorway, 
clattered down the wheezy stairs, reckless of 
life or limb, to announce to his womenfolk 
below this wonderful new event. 

Mildred looked round with contracted lids, 
and, saying nothing, sat down upon a chair. 
I scrutinised her with an interest in which 
pain predominated ; for I could not grow 
accustomed all at once to so marvellous a 
twirl as Fortune had just thought fit to give 
her wheel. Here was the being who to me 
in my great misery had been the only vision 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 223 

of briofhtness — whom I had o^ildecl with the 
refined gold of distant worship — brought 
down by one fell swoop to my own abject 
level, and accepting her changed state with 
calm. 

Perchance she did not herself yet realise 
the change, for she was a child still, although 
demure beyond her age. To place blind faith 
in a stranger as she had done — to follow him 
without a murmur into so vile a slum — 
smacked of extreme innocence and ignorance 
of the world ; or was she led to put faith in 
me by the occult power of the unsuspected 
bond ? It might be so, for the firm mouth 
and straight eyebrow belied any suspicion of 
childish feebleness. Her cheek grew a shade 
more white as she sat, and her lips lost their 
ruddy tinge. Idiot that I Avas, with my 
schemings and surmises ! The child had 
undergone an ordeal which had numbed her 
faculties ; and the reaction was working now. 
She had, in the anguish of pride struggling 
against oppression, stood face to face with 
death, and love of life prevailing, she had 
broken down in the dread resolve. 

Appalled at the isolation in which her rash 



224 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

act had placed her, and repenting the wicked 
impulse which bade her cut the knot, I — 
world- worn, uncanny unreality — had ap- 
peared in the light of an angel, who, using 
the talisman of the parent's name, which was 
webbed round in her young mind with mys- 
tical romance, had bidden her, in a voice of 
authority derived from the Great Unknown, 
to follow. She had obeyed me as one in a 
mesmeric trance obeys the mesmerist — too 
glad to abdicate a right of volition that was 
fraught with unaccustomed peril — too wearied 
by an unequal fight which had borne down 
her fraofile muscles. She had followed, trust- 
ing blindly to the new guide who spoke with 
such strange tenderness — whose voice struck 
chords of sweetness out of the forgotten 
past. She had followed — but, the haven 
reached, the tension of over wrought nerves 
relaxed — with a gasp like the fluttering of 
some little bird, she laid her head back and 
fainted. 

Blaming myself angrily for my want of 
consideration, I hurried down the stairs and 
summoned the womenfolk of my friend the 
coalheaver, whose heads were all gathered in 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 225 

a group, and who, full of wonder, were ^putting 
two and two together.' Thanks to Spevins 
and his charity, their room w^as no longer 
what it had been. The dear invalid was 
beyond human help when the Comforter, in 
guise of a burglar in furry head-gear, appeared 
upon the scene. He was gone I there was 
no help for that. But the bedding, which 
had been pawned, somehow took the place of 
the rotten straw ; there was a fire in the 
grate ; even a flower-pot upon the chimney- 
piece, wherein might be discerned a speck of 
ofreen like a verdant worm, which in summer 
was to bloom into a geranium. Spevins, 
peculiar creature, was consistent even while 
seeming to contradict himself. This was 
only another phase of the ' remaking of 
Nature's slop-w^ork,' which he looked on as 
the pleasurable duty of his career. 

The womenfolk flocked upstairs with a 
flapping and clacking as of many ducks ; 
gabbled of the sweetly-pretty dear with the 
lovely hair ; placed the exhausted girl in my 
bed and tucked her up ; hung an apron over 
the window to modulate the light ; behaved 
with the unselfish gentleness of stricken 

VOL. III. 58 



226 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

creatures : and creakinof down ao^ain to where 
I waited^ set my mind at ease by declaring 
that the lady was only tired. They made 
bold to drop a hint or two ; to try a furtive 
question, skilfully concealed under a casual 
remark ; but I put a stop to that at once, and 
they were fain to bottle their curiosity. 
Then, swearing them by awful oaths to watch 
her sleep and tend her waking, I sallied 
forth to wander about the byways and settle 
something in my addled head as to what had 
better be done next. 

No respectable friends — not one. Had 
Fortune turned about her wheel in this out- 
rageous and unexpected fashion, just to show 
me what an awkward thing it was to have no 
friends but thieves and housebreakers ? 
What was to be done \ where could I go ? 
In my perplexity I almost felt inclined to 
throw aside the veil which wrapped me — to 
toss up the sponge — and, seeking out some 
Prisoners' Aid Society, to implore them to 
find protection for the homeless girl. Then 
I reflected upon what prisoners of every 
grade had told me of their sad experience 
of those societies. No tangible assistance 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 227 

could be hoped from that quarter ; or indeed 
from any quarter. It was despairing, nothing 
more nor less. The only thing for me to do 
was to bide my time ; to wait and see what 
Fortune would do next. 

What would Jaggs think of it — and 
Spevins ? We were tied together by the 
compact for our commonweal. I had not 
seen them for some time past. They surely 
would not be pleased with ray incumbrance. 
Heavens ! into what companionship should I 
be compelled by circumstance to introduce 
my darling. How could I help it ? As I 
pondered I ground my teeth, for the devils 
whispered that she at least had done no 
wrong — even unconsciously as I had — but 
that for all that she was doomed to be lost 
as I was. Her plight should surely steel 
me to doughty deeds, rather than cause me to 
break the compact. Heaven was as cruel 
and as pitiless as man, to others as well as to 
me. My task of vengeance was in its way a 
holy one. I shook my fist at the smoky 
strip which showed 'twixt overhanging eaves, 
and dully gave the matter up. I could not 
solve the enigma of life's trials, and would 

58—2 



228 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

try no more. With burning eagerness did 
the avenger pant for the dawning of the day 
when this weariful noviciate should cease, 
and implacable warfare commence. 

It seemed possible that Mildred would 
be forced to dwell amongst us. Fate wills 
strange things at times. It was evident that 
for the present there was no alternative. I 
must see to her comfort therefore as far as I 
was able ; and to that end abandoned my 
crazy room to her, procuring for my own use 
a garret in the gable. 

She must not be permitted to mope either, 
as she would do if mewed up in that close, 
dingy chamber. Morbidly anxious for her 
welfare, I was delivered of the brilliant 
notion that, situated as she was, it would do 
her no harm to see a little life, provided that 
her ears were not assailed by blasphemies 
or improper conversation. I got the sere- 
naders up and made them perform, warning 
them beforehand that they must cull only the 
choicest flowers from their bouquet. Some- 
how they failed to amuse the child after the 
first few minutes. She looked at them in a 
wan, scared manner, which fairly checked 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 229 



their poor attempts at mirth ; and Bones 
gave it up at last, declaring that unless 
Missy would be obliging enough to smile 
now and then for a change, it was no go. 

' We've often had bad audiences/ he com- 
plained, ' but never nuffin' so blank as that. 
Lugubrious expressions is damping to the 
cheerfullest of minstrels. I'd rather stand in 
an east wind, any day, and sing touching- 
ditties through the chink of a gin-palace door, 
while selfish coves drink gin-hot, and don't 
give no coppers to the musicians — and liord 
knows that's 'eart-breaking enough !' 

The serenaders did not answer, so they 
were cashiered. I bethought me that we 
w^ould dine each day at a snug, one-eyed 
hostelry hard by, where respectable poverty 
thought fit to eat its meals. This hostelry (a 
lively and engaging place) stood close round 
the corner, and made known its line of busi- 
ness by means of a modest tea-cup and a 
humble coifee-pot, placed each in a window 
in front of a muslin blind. Beside these 
suggestive items of homely ware was pinned 
a list of viands, fly-blown and stained by the 
dusty footprints of Time, wherein the im- 



230 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

pecunious cit might read that a good dinner 
was to be procured for six portraits of the 
queen in bronze. This obhging eating-house 
could boast, in addition to other advantages, 
of the inestimable boon of a gridiron, that 
precious possession being typified over the 
portal by a weak-backed Q^gj which bore 
traces of having once been gilt. The gridiron, 
suspended over the portal, did not merely 
imply that the luxury of a square of iron 
bars was amongst the penates of the estab- 
lishment ; but suggested also — and this was 
more important — that a fire roared daily at 
one o'clock, over which gentlemen and ladies 
were at liberty to toast their own meat, being 
supplied as well with knife and fork and 
plate and cup of tea, for the trivial sum of 
twopence halfpenny. Beer being licensed to 
be retailed on the premises, gentlemen might 
even, should they think proper, imbibe that 
exhilarating fluid instead of tea. Moreover, 
so anxious was the proprietor of the hostelry 
to oblige those who were his patrons, that un- 
wise virgins whose wants were not provided 
for beforehand were informed that they might 
obtain ready-cooked liver and bacon for four- 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 231 

pence, vegetables or pudding for a penny ; 
and last, not least, that accounts might be 
settled weekly — a very important inducement 
this. But the very poor are suspicious of 
too tempting offers. Therefore I regret to 
say that the mass of ladies and gentlemen in 
the neighbourhood, who were happy pos- 
sessors of pennies, doubting the ingenuous- 
ness of such too accommodating amiability, 
preferred as a rule to purchase their food by 
weight, and to grill it under their own per- 
sonal superintendence. Having cooked their 
food, they were in the habit of retiring in 
shirt-sleeves to consume the result of their 
labours in a gloomy, ramshackle building at 
the back — with no prospect but a brick-bat 
garden and leaky waterpipe — under the 
auspices of a savage-looking waitress, who, 
consideringlherself clothed with darkness as 
with a garment, lamentably neglected the 
adornments to which her sex is supposed to 
be prone. More trusting patrons, on the 
other hand, rolled daily in through the swing- 
door, groped their way to the tottering cloth- 
less table, and devoured all that the waitress 
thought fit to put before them, paying off 



232 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

their score each Saturday on receipt of their 
weekly wage. These reckless plutocrats, how- 
ever, were few, being for the most part dock- 
labourers, who had no family to support. As 
to those who were less fortunate, and who 
had the further ill-luck to be ' down,' we 
know their fate too well ; and I judged it 
wise to lead Mildred to look upon the 
brightest side of the dismal rookery wherein 
we had our nest. 

But even this amusement did not enter- 
tain my child any more than did the 
serenaders. She shrank from the rouoii 
people and their rough talk, and I could see 
that she pined in the new atmosphere, 
though she did her best to hide it from me. 
There was something brewing in that pretty 
head. She observed me from under her lonof 
lashes when she deemed me busy with my 
book, and when I met her eye, opened her 
mouth as if to speak, then, sighing, held her 
peace, and in silence stitched at the needle- 
work which she had begged me to procure 
for her. 

For my own part, I studied her as furtively, 
and tossed on my mattress under the tiles 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 233 

in vain attempts at sleep, revolving and mar- 
velling — marvelling and revolving — what- 
ever could have possessed the fickle goddess 
to treat me and mine so scurvily ? I guessed 
that, being sharp-witted, my anomalous posi- 
tion would surprise her, even more than it 
did my friend the coalheaver. I felt certain 
that she pondered over it by day — possibly 
dreamed of it by night ; was becoming, 
with returning calm, more desirous of ac- 
quiring knowledge to which she should be 
a stranger, and that a moment would come 
more or less speedily when the spirit of 
Eve would possess her daughter and impel 
her to eat the apple. To avoid this as long 
as might be, I bent all my energies. The 
situation was a false one ; none could be more 
aware of that than I. 

False situations cannot remain in statu quo 
for long. Unless taken in hand with uncom- 
promising resolve, and killed instead of 
scotched, the single snake develops spon- 
taneously into a nest whose contents in- 
crease in number at compound interest with 
every hour, till we see that there is no use 
trying to annihilate the breed, and so let them 



234 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. • 



have their way. Such a situation as my 
daughter's and mine was clearly untenable. 
I knew the secret ; she did not. My voice 
betrayed itself now and then in a way which, 
not possessing the key, could only fill her with 
surprise. I was lashed at moments by what 
the French call an elan (a word more rife 
with meaning than our word impulse) ; and 
she, amazed and perplexed, awaited an ac- 
count of her cherished father's death and 
burial, which never was forthcoming. 'Why,' 
she evidently argued, 'should this secretive 
individual have volunteered hints about my 
father, have admitted that he was present 
at the funeral, if — once located with him — he 
is mum ? For my dead father's sake^ he 
said, he brought me here. How provoking 
of him, then, to keep his lips hermetically 
sealed.' 

Mildred was on tenter-hooks ; awaiting a 
confidence which never came. Knowing, as 
I did, what passed within her mind, I was 
guilty and confused, which only helped to 
make matters worse. 

Just consider how bizarre was our position. 
Excitement passed, she was shrewd enough, 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 235 

despite inexperience, to know that a young 
lady, born and bred, could not take up her 
abode for long in the slimiest of slums, as 
the adopted daughter of a mysterious 
creature whose only object, having lured 
her thither, seemed to be to let things slide. 
And such a creature ! One who wandered 
aimlessly, with fists in pockets, talking to 
himself; who, racked by accesses of emotion, 
gnawed his nails and glowered at her ; who, 
when she strove gently to delve into his past 
(she having told her own), jumped up with 
muttered imprecations, and flinging wide the 
door, sallied forth, nor returned for hours. 
My apparently unruddered conduct was suf- 
ficient to fill her with apprehension. I would 
not speak, and would not let her put ques- 
tions. Verily, the new existence was so 
bleak and smileless as to suggest to her mind 
that a stepfather's blows — a sleeping-place 
in a canal — were preferable to it. In how 
awkward a situation were w^e both placed. 
The longer we lingered in our false position, 
the greater grew the difiiculty of escape. I 
knew all this, and yet, while I deplored that 
it should be so, I could not but feel keenly 



236 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

the delicious wronorfulness of snatcbino: a 
brief measure of my child's society ; and 
even caught myself loDging that she might 
not be torn from my arms, at the same time 
that I Wcis most anxious to get rid of her. 

How long a condition of things so har- 
rowing to both would have lasted, it is im- 
possible to conjecture ; a crisis was brought 
about one afternoon by the advent of Jaggs 
and Spevins. 

Mildred was standing in the corner of the 
chamber in which she slept at night, and 
which I occupied with her by day ; and the 
window being of the smallest (two panes, one 
mended with paper), and the day waning, 
our visitors were unaware for a moment of 
her presence. 

Bouncing up the stairs in immense spirits, 
while his genteel companion followed with 
more stately tread, Spevins dashed into the 
room, and indulged in a j^as seul. * Rich and 
rare were the toofs he wore !' he sansr as 
he poussetted around the table, and a * bran- 
new box on each clump he bore 1' How are 
you git ting on, my noble captain ? How are 
you gitting on all this while ? Let's look at 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 237 

yer. Why, ye're gitting on toppin' — blest if 
I should have know'd yer I There's summat 
different, let alone the mustard and cress — ■ 
don't ye see, Jaggs ? — there's summat altered 
like there was in the quarry that time — don't 
you remember? — when he used to look so 
awful savage, and all at once became content. 
Ain't it a speakin' physog ? Summat's 
happened — what is it ? I'm blowed if you 
ain't like the animile as changes all manner 
of colours, as my eye does when it's blackened. 
Well ! you'll nearly do now — time's a'most up 
— quarantine's done, and here's your bill of 
health. Prepare to receive cavalry ! Hoopla !' 
So saying, he struck an attitude of mock 
pomp, and handing me a parcel, signified in 
pantomime that I was to open it. 

' New togs for you, old man, to appear in 
the world in. They're from a West-end tailor 
— the slappest things out. A pair of stunnin' 
kicksies — fit for the Prince of Wales — a gum- 
stretcher, three neckties, and a dozen pa2)er 
collars. Who says as I ain't a proper pal f 

I picked up a frock-coat and a pair of 
trousers from the floor, and threw them on 
the bed, while Mildred stared with all her eyes. 



238 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

The day-dream would be over in a minute — 
her quick intelligence would have food to 
work upon. If she did not learn all, she 
would learn sufficient to warrant the hazard 
of a guess. What then ? What would she 
do or think ? Would she suspect that I was 
a member of a secret gang, and that she had 
been lured hither to be trained for a decoy ? 
Oh, horror ! Why did I not invent some tale 
while it was easy \ The imperceptible wall 
was rising. Though dwelling under the 
same roof, we were further apart — much 
further than when she was grieving over the 
departed, whilst I was doing my labours in 
the quarry. Yet what story could I have 
invented which she, with those truthful eyes, 
would not instantly have recognised as 
falsehood ? The real story of the future I 
might not tell, for it was not my own secret. 
It appertained as much to Jaggs or Spevins 
as to myself ; nay, more to Spevins than to 
either of us, for its germ had sprung from 
his nimble brain. Well, suspense would be 
over soon ; and none would be more glad 
than I. She would learn the truth, and 
despise me. But it was not to be yet. 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 239 

df ^ 

Before saying anything that was com- 
promising, Spevins and Jaggs both perceived 
the presence of a stranger at the same 
moment, and looked from me to her and back 
again as though to request an introduction. 

^A young lady — a friend of mine who is 
stopping here,' I stammered with embarrass- 
ment. It stuck in my throat to have to 
present my Mildred to a pair of irreclaim- 
able gaol-birds. 

There was a pause, which seemed an age. 
Spevins looked at Jaggs, closing one eye, 
and whistled ; Jaggs placed one supple finger 
along his nose, and coughed. 

I turned hot and cold, and flushing up with 
rage, cried out : ^ What brutes you are ! This 
is an innocent child whom I saved from 
suicide, and who is living here till she can 
find work — that's all. Nothing so wonderful 
in that, I suppose ?' 

' Is she to be the barmaid of the new pub V 
scofled Spevins, who, whilst nettled, was 
amused by my unnecessary heat. 

' She'll make a first-rate one to draw ale for 
the butlers,' acquiesced Jaggs, surveying the 
girl with approval, as he might a horse's 



240 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

points, whilst she, clothed in quiet dignity, 
moved forward into the light. 

' Take care, Jaggs I' I cried, doubling my 
fist unconsciously, while my eyes glared. 

* Say what you like to me, but take care how 
you presume to insult this lady. If you 
dare to look at her like that, it'll be the 
worse for you. She is here in the light of a 
dau2fhter. Kemember what I once did — 
remember the L upon my arm ! If you are 
wise, you will not goad me to do such a deed 
again.' 

' Hoity-toity !' sneered Jaggs, prudently 
retiring out of reach behind his companion. 

* A cat may look at a king, I've heard. But 
the gentleman lag has got hold of a bit of 
muslin, and we mustn't so much as look at 
her. Ho-ho ! that's a good un — rayther !' 

This was a bad beginning. I knew I was 
a fool to act as I did, but the old devil 
surged up within me, and I was wild with 
indignation. By a prodigious effort I mastered 
myself, and gulped down my emotion. How 
should I improve Mildred's position by anger- 
ing these men ? 

^ Don't be an ass, Jaggs !' I retorted. * I 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCVBUS. 241 

didn't mean to wound you/but I won't stand 
nonsense, you know. I only meant that you 
were to remember that this child is innocent 
— has seen little of the world — least of all, 
our world — and that, being unused to that 
sort of thing, you should be cautious/ 

'■ She's not to be in the swim, then V Jaggs 
demanded sulkily. ' It's a mussy you don't 
want to crawl out of the contract. Pah ! I 
don't care about innocence myself — rayther 
out of place — no more should the likes of 
you, I'm thinking.' 

I winced at being spoken to thus before 
her very face. The thong ate into my flesh 
and curled round my writhing limbs ; but I 
kept my temper, though I could see in the 
glass that I was livid as marble. 

So was Mildred, deadly pale ; her blue 
eyes seemed to deepen into violet by contrast 
Avith her cheek. Her serene brow was knitted 
with intense curiosity. 

Good-humoured Spevins strove to clear the 
thunder from the air. 

•If I liked to pick up stray gals, he had no 
objection, he averred ; but I must remember 
that the morals of Mayfair were immaculate, 

VOL. III. 59 



242 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

and grooms of the chamber fastidious and 
decorous. The young lady here present was 
a sweet creature, as pure as snow, no doubt, 
sich as did honour to my artistic taste ; and 
if I chose to adopt her, it was romantic and 
high-flown, and all that. He would just 
hint, however, that we were not J.P.s as 
yet, nor millionaires, and that, until we were, 
it would be well for me to restrain the ex- 
uberance of my affection for human natur. 
A dog or a parrot, now, are cheaper to keep. 
Talking of Mayfair, he had news for me, he 
said. The landlord of the public-house was 
to give up his keys on that day month, and 
it would be necessary for me to meet him by 
appointment very shortly, in order that I 
might be put up to wrinkles with regard to 
his special business. Would I don the new 
kicksies and the gumstretcher on the 
morrow, and present myself in the afore- 
mentioned aristocratic neighbourhood *? My 
appearance was so altered that I need not 
fear being recognised. I should want a new 
tile and a pair of gloves to finish me off; 
here was a five-pound note for present neces- 
sities, of which I was to make the most, and 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 243 

not spend more thau I could help on my new 
plaything. 

With this, and a promise to call again 
to-morrow, he and Jaggs departed, and 
Mildred resumed her needle- work, her brow 
still fretted with a frown. 

I pocketed the note and pretended to 
read. If only I had the courage to speak 1 
But my mouth was dry as parchment, and I 
was afraid of the sound of my voice. What 
was it that was working in that little head ? 
Had she comprehended the gist of those two 
men's remarks % and if she had, what did she 
purpose doing ? I held my tongue, and so 
did she. We threw sidelong glances at one 
another now and again, and then looked 
down. The situation was intolerable. Those 
blue eyes of hers were like burning-glasses. 
I put on my new clothes, and escaped into 
the streets. 

' What could she think of me now f I kept 
asking myself, with inward groaning. But 
after all it didn't matter, since she was never 
to know of the bond which ought to have 
united us. ^ I don't care about innocence ; 
no more should the likes of you.' Did she 

59—2 



244 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

realise what Jaggs meant by that ? How 
frightful it would be if she were to decline 
to sit down at the same table with me ; to 
recoil from her father as from an unclean 
thing ; to upbraid me for having stood 'twixt 
her and the long slee]^ ; to fling at me words 
of scathing abhorrence ! The wounds would 
not be less deep because the barbs were 
hurled unwittingly. And if she did upbraid 
her unhappy parent, she would be fully 
justified in doing so. Unless I were able to 
provide an endurable future on this globe, I 
surely had no right to prevent her from 
leaving it. For myself— unfettered by ties 
of family or name — I was free to choose my 
own road. But I was surely wrong to have 
snatched the young girl from the grave, to 
share with me the future which alone was 
mine to offer. The yearning which bade me 
keep the damsel by my side was (looking at 
it from the least guilty aspect) culpable 
weakness. Those who ride forth to fight 
Apollyon do not carry young ladies on a 
pillion. 

The more I paced the streets, the more 
plainly did I see that there was but one way 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 245 

out of the difficulty. Of course I could 
never breathe a hint of who I was. The 
scorn with which she tossed her pretty head, 
when I had suggested that her errant parent 
might have fallen into crime, was sufficient 
warning. It was incumbent upon me to go 
back without delay, and summon courage to 
speak out openly as far as regarded herself. 
The preposterous hope that was rising in my 
bosom must be torn up by the roots. It was 
my duty to point out to one so inexperienced 
and guileless that I w^as a pariah, an outcast, 
no matter what, and implore forgiveness for 
having, even for an instant, thrown her into 
such companionship as that of Jaggs and 
Spevins — my sworn comrades. It was my 
duty to entreat my darling — on bended 
knees, if need were — to return home to 
where her mother was — to bear Mr. 
Trevelyan's cruelty — anything — rather than 
remain in proximity to one who was ac- 
cursed ; Avho was under a ban ; a loathsome 
leper, struck with a disease infectious and 
deadly. When duty calls it is not always 
easy to obey. Several times I turned round 
-and made a step or two towards Black-Jack 



246 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

Alley; several times my resolution failed, and 
I turned back again. 

How I hated myself when I realised how 
flaccid was grown my will ! That which I 
was called upon to do, could not be done. 
Could not ? It must, and straightway, at 
any personal risk ; or who might tell what 
evil might not come of it ? When I did at 
last muster courage to sneak home, Mildred 
was on the tip-toe of expectation. The 
daughter of Eve was waiting to hear some- 
thing of my comrades. I could only hang 
my head. We were at cross-jDurposes, as 
usual. Blushing with shame, I whispered 
inwardly for comfort : ' In a few days ! only 
a few days more !' and as the lines of 
wounded pride started out upon my 
daughter's forehead, the brow of the would- 
be avenger was abased in the dust. I 
groaned in spirit as I beheld the haughty 
curves about her mouth and nose ; and 
writhed when she murmured questions of 
her father's burial — spreading delicate feelers 
to induce me to speak out. 

Oh, those innocent shafts ! How they 
wounded me ! She imagined that if I could 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 247 

be got to talk of the mysteriously departed, 
it would be best for both ; for not only would 
she learn that which she longed to know, but 
it would be very odd if, in the recital, I did 
not drop something of my own past which 
should help to mow down the thicket which 
was springing up 'twixt herself and her 
preserver. From her point of view she was 
right ; and so was I from mine, when I 
turned her weapon and evaded any mention 
of the subject. Is it to be wondered at that 
Mildred should have become cold ; thatj. 
outraged by the anomaly of our relations, 
she should have tossed her head and retired 
altogether within herself? 

Extremely sensitive to word or sign on 
her part, I perceived with a pang, as days 
passed on, that my daughter, the apple of my 
eye, avoided me ; that she managed to find 
occupation elsewhere at times when I was 
used to expect a welcome to our humble 
room, and I, in my turn, felt wounded. 
After all, supposing that she was racked by 
suspicions of what I and my comrades were, 
did she not owe me some scant courtesy at 
least for having held out a hand to her in 



248 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

her utmost ueed ? Given that she was not 
to die, I had saved her from the streets. 
Though there was a Bluebeard's chamber 
whose threshold might not be passed, I had 
treated her as a slave his mistress— as a 
swain his goddess — with a punctilious and 
delicate respect which should have won from 
her some gratitude. But no. She pined 
and languished in her squalid cage, wihh re- 
proachful head tossed at him who placed her 
there ; behaved to me, who had saved her 
from unknown perils, with studied coldness ; 
was not the least grateful for the little I was 
able to do ; wished herself possibly in the 
water, where, but for my interference, she 
might have been lying after all. 

Mildred's reserved demeanour and pinched 
lips were as distressillg to me as my reticence 
was to her. If in me she scented and 
abhorred the criminal, why not have said so 
openly ? If she only would have spoken out, 
I could have spoken too, and knowing what 
it was that she suspected, have placed myself, 
possibly, in a less unfavourable light. And 
yet all the time I knew perfectfy well that 
with me as the elder, and also the suspected 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 249 

person, lay the onus of explanation. I knew 
it, but my lips were hermetically glued 
together for all that. It was as though a 
malign spell, which it was hopeless to resist, 
had been cast over us ; as if some wicked 
fairy had determined to erect an impassable 
barrier between the two melancholy waifs 
who should have loved and consoled each 
other. And when I discerned how effectively 
the work was being done, I gave way to 
quiet cachinnations — a rattle of grim laughter 
like the hammering of nails into a coffin. 
Much had I, the ticket-of-leave man, the 
murderer, to do with love or consolation ! I 
must really be growing half-witted to con- 
sider such things, even in day-dreams. Love, 
consolation, gratitude. Images of heavenly 
tenderness which could have no niche above 
my hearth, no home in my empty breast. 
It was in the order of things, I said approv- 
ingly to myself, that Mildred should be hard 
and ungrateful ; that she should be indifferent 
to her stricken parent, should not feel herself 
drawn to him over whose imaginary tomb 
she wove mystic garlands of romance. Had 
not the whip of Fate flayed me for years 



250 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

with its many thongs ? It was proper that 
the treatment of the pariah should be con- 
sistent. Well ! things were about to square 
themselves. The whip had swept my shoulders 
hourly for longer than it was pleasing to re- 
member. In a few days — only a few days 
now — I should be able to pass on the blows, 
stripe by stripe, summoning weal for weal. 

To others Mildred could be kind, and that 
made the matter worse. The wretched 
creatures who swarmed and starved in our 
miserable tenement adored her. She flitted 
in and out amongst their sick with words of 
soothing and encouragement, like the sun- 
beam she resembled as a babe ; busied her- 
self with cunning condiments for their behoof 
with a feverish earnestness which betrayed a 
mind ill at ease. 

' This cannot go on,' I whispered to myself 
with dim foreboding. ' What wdll happen 
next — what will happen next ? How long 
will she maintain this unnatural demeanour ? 
What will be the next step % She is proud, 
also impulsive as I used to be, else would she 
not have tried to drown herself. Some day 
she will run away. Whither will she go and 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 251 

what will be her fate ? How can I prevent 
a catastrophe, possessing no hold on her 
affections ? As possible pictures presented 
themselves on my mind's retina, each one 
more dreadful than the other, I shuddered, 
and seized my courage with all my strength at 
last. ^ I swear that an end shall be put to 
this at once !' I cried aloud, as I threaded 
the thronged thoroughfares. ^ I'll write to her 
mother anonymously. Yes, that's it — telling 
her where her daughter is ; and meanwhile, 
abscond myself Then, as I reflected that I 
was returning my darling to a home where 
she would be ill-used, her tender flesh bruised 
and beaten, I became tempest-tossed again, 
and murmured, ' Why have I not an honest 
friend ? Not an honest friend on the broad 
earth — not one — it is too cruel !' 

I had unconscious^ been wandering round 
the purlieus about the Tower, up and down 
the streets of Wapping, and stood now for a 
moment with folded arms upon the landing- 
stage whence passengers embark for Belgium. 
The last time I had stood there was just 
before I went into retirement — when I was 
supposed to have gone abroad to avoid re- 



252 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

porting myself to the police. Six months 
had passed since then, and I asked myself 
now, in my dreamy fashion, what effect liberty 
had had upon my character ? Was my nature 
softened ? No. I felt with satisfaction that 
it was not. Reflection and solitude and re- 
cent events had tempered the steel — that was 
all ; had made it colder, more sharp and 
pointed. There was some cause for rejoicing 
in that. I was very glad — yes, very glad — 
and, my mind made up now with regard to 
Mildred, I was moving slowly homeward 
when a hand was laid on my shoulder and 
some one said : 

' A friend, messmate I Didn't I say I'd 
stand your friend ? Avast there — I know 
your voice, though youVe repainted your 
figurehead. I heard you were gone to 
furrin' parts. Just come back, eh V 

The tone of those accents was like a 
whiff across the moors from Princetown. 
I started and beheld the good-natured, 
weatherbeaten face of Scarraweg — a grin on 
his wooden lineaments, which seemed to give 
an extra curl to his moth-eaten old Newgate 
frill. 



" A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 253 

A friend who was an honest man : never 
was desire more speedily gratified I Why 
had I never thought of the kind chief- warder 
- — the one honest friend to whom the pariah 
might look ? I, as well as Mildred, could be 
ungrateful. With an eagerness which gave 
the old man pleasure, I grasped his hand. I 
was glad to see him — I could not say how 
glad. Would he do me a favour — a great 
favour ? Of course he would. At Dartmoor 
he had done me many a good turn. The sight 
of his old face was like a glimpse of the 
breezy sea. 

Scarraweg laughed slyly, and took my arm. 

' It's astonishing,' he grunted, ' how glad 
people are to see us when they want some- 
thing. Inside the prison folks ain't so 
pleased to see me. Howsomdever, I'm at 
your service, messmate. What can I do for 
you f 

We strolled down Wapping High Street, 
entered a tavern over whose bar another salt 
presided who was a counterpart of the chief- 
warder, and, retiring to a back parlour^ called 
for something to drink. Meanwhile the ex- 
joerienced eye of my companion had been 



254 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

examining my outer man, and the result of 
the survey seemed hardly satisfactory. 

^ Gone to the bad, I'll swear ! Too great 
a swell,' he grumbled. ^ But perhaps I 
wrong you. You always was mysterious. 
Your friends came forward, no doubt ; and 
yet that can't be neither, for didn't I hear 
you telling the winds just now that you 
hadn't a friend on the earth ? Them clothes 
ain't of the prison make, nor yet from the 
slopshop — they're West-enders, and expen- 
sive. How did you come by "em '? Don't 
say they're stole ! I can read signals with- 
out a glass as well as any. Ah well ! here's 
better luck to both of us. Never say die ! 
What can I do for you f 

My sudden gladness had had time to ooze 
away. On the whole, the rencontre was 
awkward — decidedly awkward, for it showed 
that the change in my appearance was not so 
complete as I had supposed (or was it only 
my voice that had betrayed me ?), and it was 
on the cards that the gimlet optic of the 
* factory ' in Scotland Yard might penetrate, 
even in May fair, the thin film of my dis- 
guise. All the more reason to persist in my 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 255 

resolution as to Mildred. So far as Scarra- 
weg went, I knew that there was nought to 
fear. He was incorruptible — a clock wound 
up by Government to strike at given mo- 
ments when eno^aof-ed on his duties at Dart- 
moor ; but he was not one to play the spy — 
to betray secrets told in confidence outside 
his special functions. I knew that I could 
speak plainly to the old sailor, and that 
though what I said might put him in a tan- 
trum, he would never whisper a word of it 
to another ; and so, with both elbows upon 
the table and a glass of stiff grog by my side, 
I made up my mind to tell him all. 

' Thank you for your goodness, sir,' I 
began. ' You can't do anything for me. 
I'm past doing anything for. Mayhap a 
knock on the head is the greatest kindness 
anyone could do me.' 

' It's as I suspected then — gone to the 
bad ! And a sharp, clever chap like you, 
too. Haven't you had enough of skilley 
and short- commons ? A man of the world 
ought surely to know that honesty in the 
long-run is the best policy.' 

^ That's not my experience,' I retorted 



256 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

with bitterness. ^ The prison brand is on 
me. My case is hopeless, not through my 
fault. You gentlemen chose to recast me in 
a mould of your own fancy. Very well. 
I've taken the new shape, and hope you 
like it.' 

' Oh !' growled Scarraweg, drumming his 
fingers in annoyance, ' I did think you were 
above that claptrap. Every prisoner is as 
sure to say he's a ground-down sufferer as 
that he's innocent. Convicts ought to 
suffer, oughtn't they ? I'd string 'em up 
by dozens to the yard-arm — that's the only 
thing for 'em. Damn 'em, they're incorri- 
gible ! It's disgusting !' 

I could not help smiling at the gusto with 
which my old protector rapped out his oath. 
Now that he was out of the way of rules 
and regulations, it was a comfort to swear, 
and he availed himself of the privilege. 

' You say I am a mystery/ I went on, 
* because I never received letters or saw re- 
lations — because I was a cork upon the 
waters — because at first I was morose and 
desperate, then all at once became a pattern. 
Listen, and judge for yourself.' 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 257 



Then, beginning at the beginning, 1 told 
him my tale — of how through one instant's 
madness I had placed myself under the ban 
for life ; of how I had been denied the mercy 
of the rope, to be thrust into a den of repro- 
bates ; of how I had struggled and moaned 
and finally succumbed ; and of how I had 
come at last to glory in my infamy. ' My 
future career is fixed,' I concluded, walking 
up and down, my chin upon my breast, lashed 
into agitation by the picture I had drawn. 

' Don't tell me what it is, for the Lord's 
sake !' cried out the chief- w^arder, almost as 
moved as I. ' Poor chap ! You certainly 
were more sinned against than sinning. Who 
are we that we should brand a fellow-man 
for life for an unpremeditated act of frenzy ? 
Though we've let you get out, you are 
none the less irrevocably branded ; I confess 
your case was very hard ; but it will be 
better now for those in a plight like yours. 
Thank God for the silent system — it's working 
wonders.' 

* You know in your heart that that's a 
lie !' I retorted. ' Don't play the humbug. 
You know that until men are classed with 

VOL. IIT. 60 



258 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

fine discriraination, your silent system is a 

fraud. The habitual criminal your system 

doesn't touch. Well, I admit that nothing 

can touch him — he is not to be reformed ; all 

you can do is to muzzle him, and there's no 

denying that you do that well enough. But 

as for reformation — fudsre ! there's no such 

thing. Despair, recklessness, bad example, 

ruin — for the incorrigibles alone keep up 

their spirits, and so become objects of envy 

to the despairing — all fight together against 

reform. I went into prison heart-broken but 

not vicious^, and might have faded harmlessly 

away ; but the tempter was there, placed at 

my elbow by yourselves. More merciful 

than you, he encouraged in me a thirst for 

revenge, which saved me from going mad, 

and gave to my riven life an object. I tell 

you plainly that I shall fight so long as I 

am able. Sooner or later I shall return to 

your care at Dartmoor, or go to Chatham or 

to Portland, and die a convict unless some 

gracious hand gives me first that knock upon 

the head. There's no use arguing, so you 

may save your breath. I am a brilliant 

example of the working of your vaunted 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS, 259 

system upon a refined nature ; your fist 
beats as heavily on oar silver wires as on a 
drum, and you wonder that your chimsy 
banofinof wins no music from the one while it 
shatters the other. When will you learn 
that we are entirely difterent instruments — 
that to draw music from, such as 1 we must 
be handled daintily, while to make an im- 
pression upon the coarser kind they must be 
banged ? Keep your kettledrum in one 
place, and your zither in another. Till you 
do that, your preaching is idle wind ; your 
blundering attempts at reformation no more 
than the completes t mockery.' 

The old man blinked at me as I warmed 
with my subject, keeping on an undercurrent 
of growling, and scratching the tip of his 
nose, as his way was when vexed. He did 
not know what to say, because in the inner- 
most temple of his being where Truth is en- 
shrined, that deity was telling him that what 
I said was true. He knew it, and agreed 
with me, but was annoyed none the less that 
I, a ticket- of-leave man, should place my 
finger on a weak point of the famous 
system w^ith such ease. The diatribes of the 

60—2 



26o A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

Reverend Tilgoe had annoyed him because 
they were fabrications founded on small 
grains of distorted fact. My arguments 
vexed him still more because he could not 
answer them, and deplored a display of his 
weakness before one Avho had been his serf 
So, like a wise man^ he changed his ground, 
and ringing for more drink, said : 

* I don't think, messmate, that we're here 
to discuss the system. You ask me to do 
you a favour, and tell me at the same time 
that your case is hopeless. Which is it '? 
If a man's case is hopeless, what's the good 
of a favour ? I'd do more for you than most 
people, for, dear heart alive, you've had an 
undue share of kicks, and I'd be woundily 
sorry if you came back to us.' 

Then, sitting down again and calming my- 
self, I told him about Mildred ; and as I pro- 
ceeded, his eyes goggled wider, while his en- 
circling frill of beard seemed to stand erect 
about his chin till he looked like a grizzled 
porcupine. 

' What !' he cried, when I had done. 'You 
want me to take her aw^ay, when I can see 
God's finger in it all as plain as the sun at 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 261 

noon ! So long as she's there, man, you don't 
dare go wrong. Take her away in order that 
you may batter your head against the bricks ? 
Not if I know it. I won't, that's flat.' 

His heavy pahii fell with a loud smack 
upon the table, and he looked as though not 
all the kinof's horses or all the kinsf's men 
could move him from that firm resolve. 

I got up and, smiling faintly, bowed. 

^ Then I waste my time and yours,' I re- 
joined. ' I thought you'd find pleasure in 
saving an innocent child from ruin. You 
don't. I'm wrong, so pardon me ; she'll 
come to be a thief s decoy, and go in for a 
lagging on her own account. The girl is on 
the horns of a dilemma. Either she will 
follow my fortunes, which must end in her un- 
doing, or else she will run away from me and 
be thrown upon the streets, or else I must 
return her to her mothers keeping. You 
know what that resulted in before. Already, 
suspecting something that isn't right, she 
pines and droops. Her eyes turn from me in 
aversion. She won't follow me, I think. 
No ; she'll make another plunge, and her 
fate will be the streets, and she'll have yoii 



262 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. ' 



to thank for that, for you alone could save 
lier. If you do not, and her fame comes to be 
blasted, all I have to say is, that I'd rather 
not have the remorse which will be your just 
portion.' 

The old gentleman was nonplussed, and 
rubbed his nose as if about to give way to a 
serious outbreak of testiness. Pie said no 
more to me, but growled and grumbled to 
himself, for he could read plainly in my face 
that my mind was made up, and, now that I 
had given him the key of the change which 
came over me at Dartmoor, he had cause to 
be aware that, when I had made up my mind, 
I was not easily to be shaken. 

Motioning me not to go away, he fixed 
his attention upon his grog, wliilst his eyes 
remained glued on me, and he raised the 
beaker b}^ degrees as the liquor gurgled 
down liis throat, till through the bottom of 
the glass I could discern the eyes still staring 
like two prodigious oysters with red-hot rims, 
and I quietly returned the stare. 

The last gulp or so jogged his intellect, for 
his brow cleared, and he discussed the matter 
further. 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 263 



So the girl had no affection for me ? Not 
the shoiitest ? That was sino^ular. Yet how 
should she, if I was so cold and repellent? 
If I had coaxed and petted her, now, she 
might have come to like her protector, even 
though he dwelt in a grimy hovel. Why 
had I not coaxed and petted the wayward 
child ? 

^ At least I had streno'th to avoid that,' I 
replied, with a tremor in my voice which did 
not escape the chief-warder. God forbid 
that she should come to like me I That 
would only entangle us irreparably in the 
meshes. And yet, was it not a gruesome 
destiny which had brought father and child 
face to face, only to show that they must 
remain strangers ? Of course it was better 
as it was, though cruel to one of the twain, 
for it would never do for the girl to learn 
the secret. She must go on to the end in 
io-norance, burningf incense before the un- 
known altar, throwing chaplets upon the 
imaginary tomb. Whatever came to pass 
she must never suspect the truth, never 
know that she was a felon's daug^hter, for the 
ignominy of that would kill her. For my 



264 ^ STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 



part I must rest content in that I had seen 
her, that we had dwelt together for a while, 
breathing: the same air — that I had been 
allowed to kiss her cloak, her simple garments, 
when she was out of sight. Yes ! if only 
she were far away and safe I should be con- 
tent, perfectly content, and ask no further 
favour either of God or man. 

Scarraweg grinned and shook his mane, 
whilst staring still. 

^ I was deceiving myself,' he snorted. 
^ We can all talk of the masthead while 
standing on the deck — ay, and keep our 
sea-legs pretty well, too. But if w^e are 
despatched there, many of us will turn giddy, 
and implore to be let off the job. You know, 
and so do I, that now you've got her you 
don't mean to part with the lass,' he declared, 
with conviction. ' Maybe she's a bit fright- 
ened at your stern face, and queer, self-con- 
tained manners. Some day, sitting cosily by 
the fireside, you'll blurt out who you are ; 
and then there'll be a good cry and lots of 
hugging, and after that it'll all be jolly. 
Send her away ? Not you ! You think you 
would ? I'll show you that you wouldn't. 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 265. 

Come ! I take you at your Avord. What 
took me down to the docks to-day was to 
inquire about the saiHng of the ships. There's 
a first cousin of mine who, with her husband 
and two children, is going to Canada to settle. 
That's why I'm here on leave. She'd do me 
a kindness, I know. Shall I propose that 
she takes your girl ? You say she'd be as 
glad to escape as you to let her go 1 Here's 
a chance, now. My cousin's a soft-hearted 
body, who'd be a second mother to her. In 
Canada she would be safe from her perse- 
cutors, and could start afresh. You could go 
your own rigs, too, without bothering your 
head any more about the unfortunate young- 
lady, because you'd never set eyes on her 
any more. Come, now 1 Is it a bargain ? 
You'll have to promise not to write to or 
to communicate with her.' 

I met the old man's gimlet-gaze without 
blenching. He didn't know me yet. I had 
passed through my tussle, and it was over. 
Peradventure, had she been more kind, the 
struggle would have been more severe. But 
her own demeanour had shown me plainly 
that it was necessary for us to part. I was 



266 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 



used, too, to the acceptance of unpleasant 
situations. I had long since abandoned all 
idea of the world containing for me the 
smallest draught untinctured by gall. The 
temporary weakness was over. With no 
tremor now in my voice, I could grasp the 
old man's hand, and thank him as the saviour 
of my darling. 

Scarraweg was disconcerted. It was clear I 
Avas not feigning. Plucking up courage, after 
an instant's indecision,he made another attempt. 

^ Come, come, Ebenezer,' he vvhispered, in 
a wheedling tone, still holding my hand in 
his. ' Come ! for her sake be sensible. 
You think you wish it now, but you'll be 
sorry when she's gone ; and I can only da 
this, mind, on the condition that you never 
meet again. Why, because you were a con- 
vict once, are you to wear the dress again ? 
I'm sure it isn't a pretty one. That you're 
in bad hands I can see by those smart duds- 
of yours. Here's an idea. Let me take a 
passage for 3^011 as well. Why shouldn't you, 
too, start afresh along with her ? Here, I 
grant, it may not be easy to shake off old 
pals ; and you, from denying your own 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 267 



identity, have no one to help you. I'm a 
poor man, or I wouldn't be chief-warder of 
that ghastly hole that you know of; but I'm 
careful, and have put by a pound or two. 
'Tain't much. But there, take it, and go 
with her. It'll keejD you straight till you get 
employment. Some day, when you can, you 
shall pay me back. Is it a bargain V 

The good old fellow quite blushed as he 
made the proposal, in a bungling way, and, 
regardless of consequences, called loudly 
for more drink to conceal his confusion. I 
felt keenlv how kind he was, but the extent 
of the unselfish kindness only made my spirit 
the more envenomed. Of what use was 
proffered assistance when the die was cast \ 
What was this kindness now but mockery ? 
It was an insult ; for it came too late. 

With a peremptory snap of angry dignity,, 
therefore, I refused his offer. 

' I have work of my own to do here/ I 
replied. ^ Many thanks to you, all the same. 
You forget that she must never know I am 
Iier father. The whole of that dismal story 
must be a sealed book to her for ever. She 
is inquisitive now, and must have no chance 



268 A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 

of learning the truth. But there, under 
fresh auspices, she will do well. A broken 
man like me has no place in a new world, 
where all is young and hopeful. It would be 
a constant agony to me to keep my lips 
closed. The evil thing might escape me 
while I slept, and babble of its foul existence 
to the walls. The trees, the flowers, would 
hear and wither. If she came to know that 
I was her lost father and a felon, I should 
never recover the look that she would give 
me — never, never 1 No, many thanks ! She 
shall turn up when wanted — I think I can 
guarantee that ; and then a load will be taken 
off my breast, for which, believe me, I shall 
not be unthankful.' 

The old gentleman was meek and rueful now, 
discomfited and humbled, in consequence of 
my brutal refusal of his offer; so he said, sadly : 

' Well, have your Avay, if it must be so. 
You had better bring the young lady to me 
where I am staying, and I'll arrange for my 
cousin to meet her, or — stop I we'll meet at 
my cousin's place — a lodging-house close to 
Birdcao'e Walk, the first turnino^ down bv 
Storev's Gate.' 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 269 

I shook my head and laughed, as I 
answered : 

' Sorry to shock you, sir ; but it's your own 
fault for beino^ kind to an incorrig^ible o^aol- 
bird. I've not been out of England, and 
I've not reported myself; and, seeing how 
easily you recognised me, I don't dare show 
so near to the jaws of the enemy. I should 
be arrested, and returned to your tender 
mercies to take up my sentence where it left 
off!' 

' And a good thing too !' growled the chief- 
warder. ^ You won't help yourself, and you 
won't let me help you. You're enough to 
exasperate the angel Gabriel !' 

^ Need I again impress on you/ I retorted, 
with a smile, ' that it is scarcely my fault if 
I am hopeless and beyond help ? Good-bye, 
and God bless you ! if there is a God ; but 
the ways of man and his amenities to me 
have almost made me doubt it. Mildred 
shall meet you here whenever you wish. 
You will swear never to divulge the secret 
which you wot of? Thanks. Good-bye !' 

The old gentleman placed his hands on my 
two shoulders as a father might, and sur- 



^7o A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 



veyed me with grave pity as I prepared to 



go. 



' Hard as nails !' he oi-umbled. ' More 
sinned against than sinning. What a rummy 
world !' and moved away to pay the bill, 
whilst I went forth into the street. 

I had not far to go, and as I walked tran- 
quilly along, reviewed our conversation, 
phrase by phrase. There Avas nothing where- 
with to reproach myself I had not wavered 
in my allegiance to the devilish host whose 
myrmidon I had been these seven years. On 
the contrary, by rare good luck I had dis- 
posed of an incubus which might have im- 
peded my movements sorely. 

Thouo^h I had carried the matter with a 
hio'h hand, and flouted the insidious suo-g^es- 
tion of the warder, it was by no means clear 
that Avith this drag upon me I might not 
have faltered at the supreme moment. It 
would have been a fearsome thino^ to have 
handed back in cold blood the girl who had 
trusted herself w^ith me, to the bondage from 
which she had fled — to the bad mother who 
had so lamentably betrayed her trust. I 
might have put it ofl', and oft', and off*; and 



A STRUGGLE WITH AN INCUBUS. 271 

floundered into complications with Jaggs and 
Spevins. There was no end to the troubles 
and difficulties which mio;ht arise as a result 
of the damsel's tarrying. Could I take her 
to live with me at the House of Entertain- 
ment ? and, if I could, what disastrous 
results might ensue ! She would pry into 
our affairs — do endless mischief — even betray 
us, perhaps. 

What a mercy it was that her cold manner 
should have stung me into action, and that, 
my mind made up, or apparently so, I should 
have met the good old gaoler in the nick of 
time ! The devils were looking after their 
own — there could be no doubt of it — smooth- 
ing away obstacles, levelling roads, greasing 
wheels. Mildred would soon be removed— - 
for ever. How relieved Jaggs and Spevins 
would be ! And I — should not I, too, be 
relieved ? It would not bear thinking of I 
hastened on to break the intelligence to 
Mildred. 




CHAPTER VI. 



SHAKING IT OFF. 




S it chanced, she was at home, 
busily engaged in the mysteries of 
Irish stew. Slie took no heed of 
me, as, standing on the threshold of our 
little room, I gazed wistfully at the lithe 
figure, the shapely head bent down, the white 
neck and glittering tresses. How drear 
would be Black Jack Alley when the sun- 
beam faded. How the starving sackmakers 
would reoret the vanish in2f of the briofht 
presence. Strange, that to me alone, 
who had the strongest claim on her affec- 
tion, the girl should be so repellent. But 
everything was destined to go wrong with 
me ; there could be no manner of doubt as to 
that. 



SHAKING IT OFF. 273 

With a sigh I sat down and leaned my 
elbows on the table, watching. 

' It is very good of you,' I said at last, 
for want of some better way of breaking the 
dreadful silence, ' to take so much trouble 
on my account.' 

No answer. She was considering some- 
thin o- with all her enerp^ies. 

' What are you thinking about, Mildred V 
I inquired, by-and-by. 

Still stirring the mess with abstracted air, 
she replied slowly : 

* I've had a talk with that young coal- 
heaver, and he's set me thinking. This is 
a woeful place. The hierarchy of heaven 
must be blind, as well as deaf, for these 
lost wretches here cry out in vain. And 
yet, who am I that I should make such a 
statement '? It is ordained for the best, I 
suppose, if we could only understand it. 
Fire is a fearsome element, but it purifies 
while it scorches.' 

' Does it X I repeated, bitterly. ' That 
may be so with some, perhaps ; but it's a 
blundering remedy, which kills more often 
than it cures.' 

VOL. III. 61 



274 SHAKING IT OFF 



" The attitude of these people is a lesson,' 
she soliloquised. ' Their contentedness is 
wonderful. Their sturdy resolve to see the 
best side of a dark picture is beyond all 
praise. There's a new family come in below, 
about whom I was talkin^y to that coal- 
heaver just now, and he seemed to look upon 
their conduct, which amazes me, as quite 
natural. There's a man and his wife, and 
several children, all of them under-fed and 
badly clothed, with nothing but gloom in front. 
And yet that man is quite cheerful ; declares 
that it is all as it should be ; that he was too 
ambitious for his station, and that there- 
fore it is right his pride should have a falL 
He says that when he gets on too well, 
something always pulls him back, whereby 
he philosophically recognises the fact that 
he was not intended to advance beyond a 
given point. So absolute and entire a faith 
and trust in the o^oodness of a Beino- who 
seems to find pleasure in tormenting us, is 
very beautiful.' 

Was it ? This view of the question was 
directly antithetical to that of which Jaggs 
and Spevins were the apostles. Which was 



SHAKING IT OFF. 275 



risrht ? Pooh ! this was a feeble feminine 
way of looking at the subject unworthy the 
consideration of strong men. Are we to 
kiss the rod, however unbearable the blows? 
Was I to kneel down and offer up humble 
thank sa;ivincys because I was a wreck, because 
my face was seamed, my heart atrophised ? 
Of course not. We are human, and not 
angelic ; therefore it is idle to expect us 
to behave like angels. But there was an 
expression of old Scarraweg's, an hour since, 
which still lingered in my ears : 

^ The finger of God is in it,' he had said. 

Was this girl really sent to me for an 
especial purpose, to work a special end ? No. 
That, again, was folly. There could be no 
end for me but one. Her repellent manner 
was simply irritating ; not conducive to mutual 
good will. The fiat was gone forth that she 
must depart; and I was sitting before her now, 
with the deliberate intention of explaining 
that she must go. She had been sent to me 
by the devil, not by God, in order that the 
one cherished speck of brightness shining 
through heaven's gate might be blotted out ; 
in order that I might be confined as in a 

61—2 



276 SHAKING IT OFF. 

black dungeon — that the one possible talis- 
man of good might be removed, leaving me 
their prey for evermore. 

^ My friends hold different opinions to 
yours/ I remarked. ^ They look justly on 
these cowering wretches with contempt, 
beinof mindful of the adag^e' that Heaven 
helps those who help themselves.' 

Mildred looked me straight in the eyes, and 
responded curtly : 

' I don't like your friends.' 

This was aggressive. The devils nudged 
me, and whispered that it was pert in a 
damsel so to presume. I laughed, there- 
fore, and returned^ with irony : 

' Indeed ! You've only seen them once 
for a moment ; and, considering your age^ you 
should be an excellent judge of mankind.' 

Unabashed by the rebuke, she pursued her 
culinary operations, her thoughts intent on 
the poor people who were our neighbours ; 
and observed, after a while : 

^ You think, then, that it would be better 
to steal something and go to prison ? I 
believe prisoners are very comfortable.' 

Was this an attempt on her part to break 



SHAKING IT OFF. 277 

the ice ; a gentle innuendo whereby I was to 
understand that she knew more than I sup- 
posed ? My guilty conscience made me tremble. 
How silly was I becoming ! In the dusk 
we are terrified by shadows, and my com- 
rades were birds of the dusk, as I Avas. 
There was nothing to be gained but pain by 
dallying with that which was to be. 'Twere 
wisest to rush at the point at once, and 
have done with it ; so, with a harsh laugh, 
I said : 

' That stew of yours smells excellent. To 
take so much trouble is kind in one who is 
here to-day and gone to-morrow.' 

She dropped her spoon and looked up 
eagerly. 

' Gone to-morrow !' she echoed. * Are you 
going to send me away '?' 

' Would you not be glad to go ?' I asked, 
in my turn ; for there was a curious ring of 
regret in the tones of her voice. 

She sighed, and considered for a long 
space. Then turning, and surveying me with 
a smile I could not fathom, replied : 

' Ye — es ; I shall be glad to go. I can 
never be happy here.' 



278 SHAKING IT OFF. 

' I thouglit you would be glad to leave 
me,' I answered, with a touch of pique. 

How terrible is the breakinof of our imagfes ! 
Woe was me that we should have drifted to- 
gether so unaccountably, to part as we were 
doomed to part I 

^ I am buffeted by such contradictory feel- 
ings,' she went en gravely, ' that I scarce 
know what I say, except that I am quite 
sure that any change would be for the better. 
It would not be possible to continue to live 
as we are living. And yet, when I first saw 
you on that dreadful night, I seemed to look 
on an old friend, to listen to a well-remem- 
bered voice. You spoke so tenderly ; your 
face was so unutterably sad, that I followed 
you as I would one near and dear to me. 
Since then I've learnt to know you less and 
less. Your moods are wild ; your looks not 
sane sometimes. I'm only a girl, and have no 
right to complain, I am aware ; but it is well 
that we should speak out once before we 
part. I shall remember vou with kindness 
always.' 

I was too sore to reply, so the conversation 
llagged, as it had a way of doing. 



SHAKING IT OFF, 279 

What a pretty face was my little Mildred's ; 
sweet and grave and pensive. I sat for a 
long time gazing at her, for she was to go so 
soon, and we were never to meet again — 
never, never — and it was a drearv satisfac- 
tion to draw another picture in memory upon 
which to look sometimes. She always spoke 
sensibly and shrewdly. Her mind was a fair 
blossom which, under happier auspices, it 
would have been a joy to watch as it ex- 
panded. 

' You think, then, that the craven en- 
durance of these sackmakers is not con- 
temptible V I asked by-and-by, with a certain 
interest, for the other side of the argument 
had been dinned into my ears frequently 
enough. You think that people are bound 
to bear, however wronged and oppressed ? 
Was no rebellion, no civil war, ever hallowed 
— no rising to put down injustice sacred % If 
such a principle as this of yours is to be ac- 
cepted, how wrong has been the world's 
o'overnment since the beorinnino^ ! If a man 
is starvinof throuo^h no fault of his own, he is 
justified in stealing a loaf of bread. That is 
my view.' 



28o SHAKING IT OFF. 

^ In order that he may go to prison/ re- 
torted the maiden, bending over her stew ; 
'where he will be carefully housed and 
tended, with only a few crumpled rose-leaves 
between the blankets.' 

How she harped on the question of prison ! 
Was this really a chance arrow ? and if not, 
what did she suspect ? I dared not enter 
into the arena with her, lest a moment of 
incaution might betray me. She observed 
my reticence and seemed nettled, but after a 
break went on ao^ain. There could be no 
doubt but that she tried very hard to drag 
the snail out of his shell. 

' Have you ever considered,' she suggested 
musingly, whilst paring an onion into shreds, 
' the cause of the inequality of things ? Why 
is it that the life of one should be so un- 
wrinkled — that of his neighbour so ploughed 
by care 1 How is it that in a railway acci- 
dent, for instance, one man is horribly maimed, 
while the next one to him escapes scot-free ? 
It certainly is not that the one is more 
deserving of punishment than the other, or 
that he happened to forget his prayers that 
morning. Do you think that prayers are 



SHAKING IT OFF. 281 

ever answered — that the BuHng Power per- 
sonally superintends the destiny of each ? or 
do you hold that, having started it fairly 
upon the rails, He allows each man's career 
to run and take its chance of arriving safe or 
going wrong % Why is a special knot of 
persons, selected haphazard, as harmless as 
their fellows, sent all of a sudden by 
some short cut into eternity, through the 
foundering of a pleasure-boat, for example, 
that has gone securely over its track a thou- 
sand times % Why were innocent creatures 
permitted to languish in the Bastile, for no 
crime of theirs, through all their lives 1 True, 
that was man's work ; but why was the ac- 
cursed place not riven by lightning % Perhaps, 
though, the prisoners did not suffer so much 
as one would expect. I believe people can 
grow accustomed to anything. These patient 
sackmakers here have set me cogitating 
about all this, and I can't help turning it 
over, though I am a girl who knows 
nothing.' 

She was certainly an odd girl, dreamy and 
reserved, with the same tendency to delve 
and dig as that which possessed her father. 



282 SHAKING IT OFF. 

A girl, unlike the damsels of her age, whose 
sunless childhood had made her more prone 
to reflection than is usual in one so young ; 
and the words she spoke — were they thrown 
out by chance, or with intent '\ — awakened 
chords in my own breast which sounded out 
of tune and .strange. She affected to con- 
sider that lifelong imprisonment w^as nothing, 
because * people grow accustomed to any- 
thing.' Ah me ! how idly and lightly are 
theories started and accepted ! ^ He jests at 
scars who never felt a wound.' Did she speak 
in this way in order to goad me to betray 
myself? Had she guessed, I kept wonder- 
ing, that I had been in prison ? And then 
a-gain that question about prayers ! 

Did anybody ever pray more fervently 
than I did when I was first at Pentonville I 
Much answer had I received to them. On 
the other hand, the band of devils had an- 
swered wdth commendable promptitude. 

^ No,' I repLed, ^ I have little cause to 
believe in prayers. Do you f 

' I did,' she returned, abandoning the stew 
at its culminating danger and squatting down 
by my side with an appealing look ; then, 



SHAKING IT OFF. 283 

finding no encouragement, she added timidly : 
^ But if I do not believe any more in the 
power of prayer, it Avill be through you.' 

* Through me !' I cried ; ' why through 
me V 

What an odd girl it was ! 

'• Do you know what passed through my 
mind as I sat by the waterside, that m'ght V 
this singular maid went on. * Of course you 
do not. When I found my home unbear- 
able, I said, kneeling in my little room, " My 
God, I have no friend but You. I cannot 
see You, but I know You are close by. If I 
iiad one visible friend I would wait with 
meekness till You choose to send for me. 
But as it is I cannot bear this, and must go 
of my own accord." And I said it all again 
as I sat by the ice-hole ; and then you came 
up, as if out of the ground, and I thought my 
prayer was answered.' 

What chord was this that she was touching 
without knowinof it ? Was Scarrawecr's in- 
stinct on the true scent when he vowed that 
he dared not sever the girl from me ? Did 
she unconsciously feel the same 1 No. It 
v/as a curious and startling pattern in the 



284 SHAKING IT OFF. 

kaleidoscope due to a chance twist — nothing 
more than that. The mrl could not have 
been sent to me to untie a special knot ; for 
all I said seemed to grate upon her nerves, as 
all she said did on mine. We two were as 
far asunder as the poles ; as complete 
strangers as Cancer is to Capricorn. She 
echoed my thought, for after looking at me 
intently for a while, she gave a sigh of im- 
patient weariness and said : 

' You were not to be the visible friend, you 
see, for you and I shall never understand 
each other. When you deign to converse 
with me, you always skate. It is rarely that 
you even condescend to answer at all_, except 
by jests ; and w^hen you do, it is as though 
you had a padlock on your lips. I am 
thankful for the kind intention which you 
showed in bringing me with you ; but I 
agree that it is best that I should go. What 
do you purpose doing with me ?' 

Yes, it was best. Oh yes, it was ! She 
was not sent to be a solace. M}^ waning 
courage returned, and with a superhuman 
effort I became calm enough to speak of her 
going with a steady voice. 



SHAKING IT OFF. 285 

I spoke of Mr. Scarraweg's proposal, and 
placing it in the best light, urged her to 
accept the offer, and make a fresh and fair 
start in another country. How I got through 
my task I know not. It was as if you de- 
liberately hewed off a limb with your own 
hand. Suffice it that I did get through 
it, and that my anguish was yet further 
deepened by the gladness which shone out of 
her eyes. What a babe it was still, despite 
the demure airs of womanhood and the sen- 
tentious speech of a sham philosopher ! 
Childlike, with nods and smiles, my Mildred 
beamed with nascent joy. Straightway, 
abandoning the subject of endurance and the 
secret springs which move humanity, she 
commenced to build enormous palaces in 
Eether, leaving off one without waiting to put 
on a roof, in order to work at the first-floor of 
another to which there was no basement. 
Her pleasure was infectious, and, to please 
her, T found myself building castles too, with 
no intention of dwelling in them though ; and 
thus employed, we passed our pleasant est. 
and at the same time saddest, evening since 
first we kept house together. 



286 SHAKING IT OFF. 



By the hour when I usually retired, she- 
was flushed and animated and apparently 
happy, and as I lit my candle and said good- 
night, a persuasive little hand fluttered into 
mine, and she whispered with upturned face, 
upon which sat arch reproach : 

' Like that I am not frightened of you. 
Why can't you always look and talk so 
nicely % Stop half an hour longer — just 
half an hour, for looking like that. There is 
something I would wish you to tell me before 
I go away.' 

Smoothing the blonde curls, I stopped, and 
would have kissed her had I dared. 

' What would you want to know, my 
darling ?' I answered. 

The word brought up a flush to her 
temples. 

' You told me on that night,' she said with 
growing hesitation, ' that you attended my 
dear father's funeral. Since then you have 
evaded all my efforts to know more. Why ? 
did he die a horrid death ? Pray, — pray, tell 
me ! What was the manner of it ? I think 
I can bear to hear.' 

Oh, daughter of Eve ! always hovering 



SHAKING IT OFF. 287 

around the forbidden fruit ! I kissed her 
forehead and murmured, with a groan which 
should have been a w^arnina* to a woman's 
tact : 

' It is a dreadful story, and he would him- 
self, if he lived, have wished that you should 
always remain in imorance. It is a storv 
that would sadden your life. Let sleepino^ 
dogs lie. He loved you very much. Always 
remember that. And now my lips are 
sealed.' 

She pushed me from her with a wayward 
petulant action and a flash of the eyes, wdiich 
w^as an odd reflection of my old self. 

'You are cruel and wdcked !' she cried 
out, w^ith tears of disappointment rising. 
' Too sly and secret in your ways for any 
good. I don't believe you ever knew my 
father, for you seem to hint at something^ 
terrible, and deal in vague parables instead 
of speaking out. What is there that can 
have happened to him which I cannot bear 
to hear ? However terrible it may have been, 
it is past and done ; for he lies somewhere 
now in peace — his soul is with the blest.' 

And the tiny hand which could smite with 



288 SHAKING IT OFF. 



such ruthless force was flesh of my flesh, 
and hone of my bone ! What was all I had 
gone through before to this ? 

' We must be cruel sometimes to be kind/ 
I murmured faintly, striving to conceal my 
pain. 

*" You are deceiving me !' the girl cried ; 
*. I am sure you are, for you know nothing. 
I have said that I promise to bear anything. 
What else can you have to consider ? What 
a grand and clever exploit, to play tricks with 
a child like me ! I am glad to go — very, 
very glad.' 

With heaving bosom she burst into tears, 
and I left her sitting by the fire. Angels 
of mercy ! What else could I have to con- 
sider, forsooth ! Why did we ever meet 
again ? I too was glad that she was going, 
for this was worse than the rack. The 
devil's wall was progressing bravely. The 
sooner father and child were hidden from 
each other, the better it would be for both. 



PART lY. 

THE COMFORTER SPEAKS. 



VOL. III. 62 




CHAPTER I. 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 




VAST heaving, your honours I 
Here we are again. I thought 
I'd said all I had to say, but I 
find it's necessary for me to take up my pen 
again, to fill up a hole that Ebenezer's left 
(he Avas worrited, poor chap), and to give 
you just a little bit of an idea of how 
precious artful we old salts become when 
we're set down among a lot of convicts. 

Nothing like convicts to sharpen us up. 
Dear heart alive ! fresh- water lubbers tell 
you that we're like babbies, so simple, and 
innocent, and that — which is a civil way of 
saying we're stoopid, but it is not so. Ill 
back a salt to be the handiest man in a 
dozen picked from all trades. I myself, for 

62—2 



292 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

instance, am first class as a carpenter in an 
amateur way — can make wonderful things out 
of odds and ends when I have time ; from a 
cupboard out of a packing-case to a pair of 
shutters out of a broken sea-chest. I admit 
I was done once though (I tell you this, but 
keep it dark), when my landlady came and 
asked me to put a new wire into her set of 
false teeth ; but then that wasn't carpenter's 
work, was it ? 

And this is not caulkinof the hole in 
Ebenezer's narrative, is it % I'm like an Irish 
day-labourer; always ready for a gossip instead 
of attending to my work. Well, as I was 
saying, convicts do sharpen us up, and my 
turn in Dartmoor Prison has sharpened me 
up. When I saw Ebenezer standing on that 
landing-stage in those swell clothes, I said to 
myself, at once : ^ That lad, whose behaviour 
was so good during his last years, has gone 
backward. He has fallen into bad hands, and 
I'm sorry for it. I know, by the experience 
of men who've come back to us, how hard it 
is for one who means well to escape his 
prison pals. They dog his steps, and follow 
him, and invite him to take drinks, and set 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 293 

their women on him. Tilgoe and some of 
*em say that it's the police who prevent a 
ticket-of-leave man from earning a honest 
livelihood. Not a bit of it ; it's much more 
often his own prison pals who've got felon 
written on their faces, while he, perhaps, has 
not; and then the employers say to their- 
selves : ' If this new chap of ours chooses to 
keep the company of these villainous-looking 
fellows, with hair cut down at the sides in 
Newgate knockers, the sooner we get rid of 
him the better ;' and so he gets the sack, and 
has to fall back upon his pals for assistance. 
And so it was with Ebenezer Anderson, I 
could see with half an eye. Then, as he has 
told you (I don't like the way he's put it, 
but I've no right to change his MSS., and so 
must let it stand), I walked away with him 
and tried to pull him back ; but he looked so 
bitter and stony that I saw it wasn't any 
good arguing with him just at that time, and 
so I made an appointment for us to meet 
again, and meanwhile weut and had a chat 
with my cousin, who was about to emigrate 
with bag and baggage, and asked her if she'd 
take his gal along with her, if so be as he 



294 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 



really meant to let her go, which I refused 
altogether to believe. And here's where my 
artfulness came in, as you'll see, for I didn't 
despair yet of saving him from himself. 
Yourself is generally your worst enemy, you 
know. What's that the Scripture says about 
all the angels in heaven weeping over the 
repentance of one wicked man \ I always 
think that's the prettiest picture in the whole 
Bible, and if I could afford it, and knew 
where to go to get it done cheap by an artist 
as knows his business — and there ain't many 
— I'd make somebody paint it for me, to hang 
over my bed to look at when I wake or when 
I lie ill, or that. Fancy all their bright 
faces, with blessed tears on them, and finding 
their pleasure in watching the ways of 
mortals, and rejoicing that the crawling 
little dirty speck below should be walking 
straight, instead of crooked 1 I alw^ays think 
of that when I go to the top of St. Paul's or 
the Monument, and look down at the carts 
like pins' heads, and the men and women — 
each one brimful of joy or trouble as the case 
may be, generally trouble — so tiny that you 
can hardly see 'em at all. And when I get 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 295 

a few days' leave and take out my nephews, 
they always will go to the top of St. Paul's, 
and I always let 'em, because it's a cheap 
amusement and improving, if somewhat 
trying to old legs like mine. 

As I think I've said, I had a week's leave 
just now to see my cousin off; and on this 
occasion, instead of taking out my nephews 
for their holiday exercise, I occupied myself 
altogether with Ebenezer and his affairs. 
That's bad, you'll say, for the goldenest of 
rules is to mind your own business. You 
may make up your mind that there's no use 
palavering with a man when he's spiteful, 
and Ebenezer was precious spiteful when I 
met him that time ; and, upon my soul, I 
can't wonder at it after the story which he 
told me, and which, I could tell by his face, 
was true. So I set myself to consider how I 
could wheedle him round to look at things in 
a less bitter way. In this life we must all 
make up our minds to suffer more or less, for 
it is not intended to be too jolly, and a good 
thing too, or else there would be a terrible 
squalling about going out of it ; and so when 
we find we get more slaps in the face than 



296 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 



our neighbours, we ought to stand steady on 
our sea-legs and shake ourselves together, 
just as we do when the spray comes over and 
wets us to the skin, and say, Avast there ! 
Stand by ! That's one mark to me in the 
next world. But, Lord bless my heart, I 
needn't waste my ink and my time in telling 
you ladies and gents that, for you hear it 
once a week, at least, in church — leastways, 
that is, if you happen to be awake. I 
thought and thought how Ebenezer's bitter- 
ness was to be washed out of him, and I got 
regularly bothered. He said his life was 
broken, and I couldn't deny but it was — that 
he had no family or belongings, but was 
absolutely alone, which I look on as the 
height of human misery, and I didn't see my 
way to alter this state of things. Then, as I 
thought and thought, a.nd put this and that 
together, like the bits of a puzzle that won't 
fit, I came to the conclusion that that gal of 
his had been sent specially, and no mistake, 
to pull him round, and that it was terribly 
vexing that he would not allow her. From 
what he let drop, it struck me that she was a 
disagreeable sort of gal, which was a pity — 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 297 

perky, and hoity-toity, and that ; and then I 
remembered that people get at cross pur- 
poses and misunderstand each other, some- 
times all through their lives, only for the 
want of somebody who's artful, and who 
knocks their heads together, and says, ' Come 
now, here's a hencoop for you ; cling to it, 
while I get the boat out, and then you won't 
be drowned.' I was convinced, somehow or 
other, that that gal was intended to be his 
hencoop ; her running away from home, and 
falling into his arms, as it were, was so very 
extraordinary that it seemed to point to that, 
and so I thought I'd just overhaul the young 
craft for myself, and investigate her sailing- 
powers. 

When Anderson brought her to my 
cousin's place, I must confess it didn't 
appear promising. He looked like a man 
that's going to die, with a tight yellow skin 
and great sunken eyes, but the tip of his 
nose was pinched and his lips set firm ; and 
he just handed her over to my cousin, and 
said, as indifferent as bread and butter, 
' This is the young lady that I picked up, 
and I'll thank you kindly to look after her. 



298 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

for she's an orphan, with neither father nor 
mother now ;' and then he gave her a long 
look, as if he could have eaten her, and nod- 
ding to me, and shaking her by the hand, as 
if it didn't matter, went off just like that, 
which could not be called promising, could 
it? 

After he was gone I reckoned up the gal, 
to see if nothing was to be made of her, and 
took her down to the docks, by way of 
making her see the ship, and the berth, and 
the cargo going in, and the stores and all, 
so that she should realise that she really was 
leaving Old England behind, for all her life. 
Some people have such difficulty in realising 
things. I've seen many a one as careless as 
you please till they saw the vessel, and 
everything stowed ship-shape for the voyage ; 
and then they'd give way all at once, and cry 
out that it Avas better to starve at home 
than have plenty in exile, and fall into con- 
vulsions with the home - sickness which 
people who live in mountainous countries 
suffer so from. But by that time, you know, 
it's all up — houses and furniture are made over 
to others, and it's too late to change your 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 299 

mind ; and that's what makes the departure 
of emigrant ships so heart-rending a sight. 
I thought that perhaps the gal Avould think 
better of it if I showed her the ship, and 
prefer returning to her mother, which would 
give me time to be artful and concoct some- 
thing to save Ebenezer. . 

But she was quite calm over it, disgust- 
ingly calm ; seeming to grow a little dizzy 
with the noise, but to be interested in all 
she saw. A fine grown, pretty lass, enough. 
With a straight nose, and straight eyebrows, 
and an expression perhaps a leetle too 
decided and independent for her time of life. 
It was a self-contained expression, as if she 
was accustomed to think a great deal, but to 
keep her thoughts inside, for want of some 
one who'd care to know about them. I took 
her down to the cabin where she and my 
cousin and the children were to sleep. Every- 
body being too busy to attend to us, I seized 
the opportunity to heave over a lead, just to 
see where the shoals lay. 

' So you're glad to go/ I said, quite plea- 
sant-like. ' When you've no one to look to, 
it's nice to change the scene, ain't it ? Have 



300 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

you got no little sisters or brothers ? That 
poor fellow that picked you up said you were 
an orphan.' 

' I am an orphan/ she untruthfully 
answered, without a blush. 

* With no one who'll miss your care here ? 
Your case then is singular and unhappy. 
It's given to few to be so cursed as to have 
no ties at all.' 

She looked up at that, rather startled and 
uneasy, and I began to feel better as I went 
on : 

'Mr. Anderson's one of that unfortuit 
sort, I'm sorry to say — without a creature in 
the wide world to look after him.' 

The lead could find no bottom. She was star- 
ing out of a porthole, just as if Ebenezer never 
existed. I was on a wrong tack.* For she didn't 
seem to care twopence about ]\f r. Anderson ; 
and yet, with that pretty face of hers — I re- 
solved to persevere. 

' A good chap, very, is Mr. Anderson,' I 
remarked quite careless-like. * As you'd think, 
if you knew him as well as I do.' 

' I know more of him than you, perhaps,' 
she murmured, knitting those brows of hers. 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 301 

and finding something very amusing outside 
of that there porthole. 

It was my turn to be startled now. 

' What do you know, little miss ?' I asked. 

* Never mind/ she snapped out sharply. 

* If you knew him as I do/ 1 proceeded, 
as bold as brass, loaded to the muzzle 
with good intentions, 'you'd know that his 
lot has been as hard as that, perhaps, of any 
man on earth. It's a story that should wring 
drops of pity from a stone. Under that cold 
outside, he's as upright and honest a man as 
ever breathed.' The gal looked so pinched and 
stern and virtuous — as juveniles will who've 
never been tempted yet — that I felt like 
going off into a tantrum. ' You're a blame- 
worthy young bit of goods,' I blurted out — 
to save my life I couldn't keep my blood 
from boiling, though I did try to be patient — 
' to leave him all alone to pine, after his 
saving you as he did from a wicked act.' 

The colour was mounting to the gal's 
cheeks and temples — she too was getting 
angry, and I w^as not so very sorry. When 
folks get cross they speak out the plainer. 
The battle's sharp, but it's sooner done with. 



302 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

^ Did he tell you that he wanted me V she 
demanded without moving. ^ No, of course 
he didn't. What do you mean by speaking 
to me like this ? I was a nuisance to him, 
and he made me feel that I was. I seem 
born to be a nuisance to everybody, and yet 
I never asked to be bom. If he had wanted 
me, I think I should have stopped with him 
even in that dreadful place. Yes, I'm afraid 
I should. I am so lonely ; and yet I ought 
not — it wouldn't be right.' 

^ Not be right !' I cried. ^ Why not, you 
aggravating bit of goods ? It's not the first 
time by several that a helpless person has 
been adopted by a stronger one, and it won't 
be the last, pray goodness !' 

She turned slowly round and faced me. 

' You are an old man,' she remarked, ' and 
I young, with no experience.' 

' Like this here steamer without the screw/ 
I suggested; * handsome, but of little use.' 

^ If you know that man, as you say you do, 
will you dare place your hand upon your heart, 
and tell me that I ought to have stopped with 
him*?' 

Deliberately I placed my two hands upon 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 303 

my heart, and answered as fervently as if I 
was down upon my knees saying my prayers : 

'As God is looking at us, you ought. 
He's poor and friendless. It's on the cards 
that you might save him from hell-fire I' 

' Gh !' she cried, breaking out. ' You, with 
your grey hairs, dare to tell me that ! You 
know as well as I do that he's been in prison. 
Is it fitting that one like me, who has nothing 
but her innocence, should be living along of a 
man like, that ?' 

I was fairly taken aback. How could she 
know he had been in prison ? Perhaps, 
more artful even than I^ she was aware who 
he was all the time. In that case, Ebenezer's 
dread was not without foundation. She knew 
her father was a felon, and recoiled from him. 
Poor fellow ! 

The young lady was not slow to perceive 
that she had scored a point, and to follow up 
her advantage. 
. ' He's a thief — a common thief. I knew 
that from something that his companions 
said the only time I ever saw them. He was 
angry that they should have come in even 
once when I was there. Such companions !' 



304 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

she continued, with a scornful Httle nose. 
* The man saved me from drowning myself, 
perhaps, though I'm not so sure that I should 
have had courage to go through Avith it, and 
brought me home and fed me for a few weeks. 
I am not ungrateful for that, and would 
have done what I could for him, if he would 
have let me. It isn't poverty that I am 
afraid of. Heaven knows ! my life has been 
so wretched, that I would welcome any 
poverty, so long as it Avas honest. I was 
grateful for the man's kindness at first, and 
would have shown it ; but his conscience 
pricked him ; he knew" what he was, and that 
my place was not with him — I'll do him that 
justice — and he is as much relieved at my 
departure as I can be. You will not tell 
me that, because a man took me in when I 
was houseless, I am bound to stop with him 
all my life, Avhen I discover that he is a, 
thief r 

^He's not a thief — you're wrong, you stoopid 
gal r I replied stoutly, though I felt, with an 
uneasy twinge, that there was no knowing what 
he might become unless shaken with all speed 
out of his present state of mind. * He's not 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 305 

a thief, and never was. How uncharitable 
it is to build up theories upon half-sentences, 
overheard by accident. As you grow older, 
young lady, you won't, I trust, be so un- 
common anxious to show up the evil in your 
neio^hbours I' 

But unheeding she went on. 

' And his cruel, cruel deceit !' she muttered. 
' By some method, and for some purpose un- 
known, he found out how I loved my father, 
and stooped , to mean subterfuge to gain my 
confidence. He was low enough to tamper 
with my most sacred memories ; to pretend — 
but there his resolution failed him — even he 
was shocked at his own baseness.' 

* Your father !' I exclaimed, a light break- 
ing on me. 

She was in tears now, softened by those 
memories, as she replied : 

' He induced me to go with him by saying 
that he had known my father — for, alas I 
my father came, I fear, to some terrible end, 
and I believed that this man could enlighten 
me ; and I loved to believe he could till, little 
by little, my e^^es were opened, and I knew 

VOL. III. G3 



3o6 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

that he had condescended to deceive me — 
that he was a liar as well as a thief !' 

I saw my Avay now. What an artful old 
fellar I had been to put on a bit of tantrum, 
when I wanted her to open out ! Didn't I 
tell you that there's nothing like people flying 
in a passion with each other just to make 
everything turn out jolly? Well, she was 
piqued a bit, but not enough to make her 
bid me mind my own business. 

' Did you ever know your father V I 
inquired of the young gal. ^ Of course you 
must have, to be so precious fond of him. 
Was he as short as Nelson, or as tall as the 
Irish giant ? Was he good-looking or ugly ? 
Should you know him again if you saw him, 
or would you recognise his pictur' V 

The young lady twisted her head round 
sharp, and showed a pair of rosy cheeks. 
She thought me, I could see, an interfering 
old cuss, but what cared I for that ? I 
nodded pleasantly, and my grey hair was 
not without its effect upon her youth. After 
a pause of a minute or two, during which I 
made believe to listen to the ^ Heave-ho !' on 
deck, as if I'd never heard it afore, she pulled 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 307 

herself together, and sat down on a rolled 
mattress, thinking, and answered in a low 
drawl, as if asleep : 

^ I seem as if I should know him, and yet 
as if I shouldn't. I was only four when he 
went away, and I thought him big— very 
big ; but children deceive themselves so as to 
proportions. I reached up to his waist or 
thereabouts, and he used to take me out into 
the country — among the birds and racing 
clouds and scudding troops of insects. I 
associate him with the day, for it was only 
when it was brilliant that he took me out ; 
and he was so careful of me. ' Since he 
vanished, all has been so sunless. He used to 
sit down, I remember, and paint or draw so 
long as the day lasted, singing songs to 
amuse me, and getting up, now and then, to 
rush along the grass with me. And then 
when I grew drowsy, as I would when the 
day waned, with the exercise and the fresh 
air, he used to take me in his arms, and carry 
me home as I slept upon his shoulder — oh, 
how well I remember that ! Sometimes, if 
the way happened to be long, I woke up 
confused with the jolting and frightened with 

63—2 



3o8 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

thie darkness and silence of the evening ; and 
then I would catch siofht of his lovinof smile 
and feel how tenderly and strongly he sup- 
ported me, and fall off to sleep again. It is 
thus that I remember him most clearly, 
though even that is blurred. A hazy pro- 
tecting spirit — a beneficent strong man sup- 
porting my infant weakness in the dark. 
That is how I remember my father, and will 
remember him always, till the end in the 
far-off foreign land to which we are going !' 

The gal's head had sunk back against the 
roUed-up mattress. Tears poured unheeded 
down her face, and seemed to have washed 
the harsh lines of pride away. 

'You are certain he is dead V I suggested, 
with tremendous artfulness. ' If he is, it 
doesn't matter how far from his grave you 
go. Once under the sod, a man's more re- 
moved from you by two feet of mould than if 
he stood on the Antipodes. By-the-bye, where 
is his grave '? ' 

Ladies and gents, ain't you all sprawling 
on your backs in admiration of my artful- 
ness ? 

Do what I would, though — what with 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 309 

blowing of my nose and taking snuff — I 
could not keep down the overflow ; it would 
come. My battered old cheeks and 'Newgate 
frill ' — as that imperent Ebenezer goes on 
^bout — were as w^et as her cheeks, for Ebe- 
nezer's sake. She remarked the phenomenon, 
and, womanlike, sprang at the idea that I 
meant more than I was a- saying. 

She jumped up and shook me. She did 
indeed, the brazen baggage ! in spite of grey 
hairs and barge-like build ; and, while she 
pulled my coat, kept crying, ' You know 
something of this. You know where he 
lies ;' and then, turning quite white and sick, 
whispered low, ' What a fool I am to be 
thinking that all the world knows or cares 
about my sorrow !' and with that she pushed 
back the masses of her hair, and buried her 
face in the mattress. 

' That looks as if you knew uncommon 
little about it yourself, my lass,' I observed. 
She was so impetuous and saucy that it was 
good to give her a sly slap. ' If you're not 
aweer where he's buried, p'raps he mayn't be 
dead — who shall tell ? ' 

Those pretty fingers were quivering like 



3IO A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

young eels ; and I could see, being so artful, 
that, though the gal's face was buried, she 
was a-listening. 

^ People disappear sometimes for reasons 
over which they've no control, and, like bad 
sixpences, turn up again, when everybody 
thinks 'em worthless. If I told you now 
that I had known your father, you'd fly out 
like a spitfire, I suppose, and talk a deal 
about baseness and deceit, and insult me, 
who am respectable enough to be your grand- 
par. I know you would, so I won't tell you 
so. You would not respect my grey hairs, 
I'm certain.' 

She was shaking now as if she must fall to 
pieces ; and, spite of all the nasty things 
Ebenezer has said of me in his MSS., I 
wasn't going to hold his daughter in sus- 
pense. But, at the same time, I was not 
sure whether she, in a romantic v/oman's 
way, might not prefer the sham father gilt 
by her own fancy to the real article, dinged 
and battered in by trouble. And I also re- 
membered, with compunction, that Ebenezer 
had wrung an oath from me with regard to 
that secret confided to my care. I wonder 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 311 

whether the angels, when they deign to look 
down and watch us, are much troubled if we 
roll over on our sides ? We get up and creep 
along, much as before, only a little dirtier. 
May we commit a tiny sin to prevent a 
greater one ? I felt a conviction that that 
oath was wicked, and must be broken. 
Betwixt me and my conscience, we'd let it 
slide, if need were, and say no more about it. 

' I don't mind telling you that I did know 
your father,' I announced, smacking my lips 
to keep my voice from shaking. * But I 
shan't tell you much about him, because I've 
little to tell that you'd like to learn.' 

She uncovered a livid green face, with 
burning eyes like coals, and rather shuddered 
out than said : 

' The words he used I What are you con- 
cealing from me ? Oh, do speak out !' 

' Supposing,' I went on, hoarsely (this was 
the worst job I ever had in hand), ^ that he 
had disgraced himself and did not dare come 
back to you.' 

She did not make the haughty movement 
now which, on that night in the snow, had 
rendered Ebenezer dumb. 



312 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

'Supposing that he had — ahem! — had 
committed a crime ' 

'A crime!' she echoed, cHnging with 
writhing fingers round her throat. 

' Supposing that he had committed murder 
— steady now, lass ! remember your sea-legs — 
and had — no, not been hanged, but respited, 
and had, by a long, weary penance, washed 
away the blood. Supposing ' 

The gal sank, moaning, down upon the 
floor, and I was fairly frightened out of my 
wits. I thouQfht she was about to die, and 
that I, a muddled old ass, had killed her. It 
was a desperate experiment ; but, for Ebe- 
nezer's sake, worth trying to the end, come 
what might of it. She was huddled up like 
a bunch of soiled linen — all eyes ; her face 
not white, but greenish-grey ; her fingers 
moving round and about her neck, as though 
there were throttling cords tied round, which 
squeezed the breath out slowly. A pretty 
thing, was not it ? What if the steward 
were to take it into his head to come round, 
or the skipper, or some one, and find us like 
this ! Why, my grey hair and all my cer- 
tificates would not be able to save my 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 313 

character. A real nice double-distilled idiot 
I was for my pains — surelie ! I, a chief 
officer of Dartmoor Prison, mixing myself 
up in the troubles of ex- convicts ! However, 
I had gone too far to retreat. There was a 
drop of water in a bottle on the shelf; I 
sprinkled it over the gal, and she revived. 

' Men may commit murder, you know,' I 
said in a Avhisper, to make her more com- 
fortable, * without exactly knowing what's 
been done, though that sounds as if it should 
be manslaughter, don't it ? But it isn't. 
Things are very seldom what they ought to 
be. You expressed most properly your ab- 
horrence of my poor friend Anderson, under 
supposition that he was a thief, in which, as 
I told you, you were wrong. If this father 
of yours, whom you've lost since you were 
four, should turn out to be alive — a respited 
murderer ' — (I dwelt specially on this, I 
was so artful, for it was sharp and whole- 
some, like a blister) — ^ how would you meet 
him V 

Those eves of hers were piercing: nie like 
bradawls. She seemed to understand, but did 
not answer ; and says I to myself, * You're a 



314 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

bad gal if you've any doubt how you would 
meet him.' 

^ Supposing,' I suggested, just to help her, 
for she was dazed-like, ' supposing that I was 
chief - warder of a prison — shall we say 
Dartmoor ? — Dartmoor be it, if you like. 
And that I knew your father there, crushed 
to the earth with suffering and grief; so 
broken down that even I — a surly old bear 
— could pity him. And supposing that even 
the minister of her Most Gracious Majesty 
(God bless her !) pitied him too, and let him 
out; and supposing that his temper was become 
sour through what he'd undergone, and that 
he was in danger of going altogether to the 
bad, through want of a little hand, like yours 
there, to pull him straight, would you leave 
him here alone in England to go to ruin, and 
sail away in this ship to begin your life again 
on your own account in the New World ?' 

* My place would be here, by his side,' the 
young gal gasped, as if out of breath. 

I didn't go up and hug her then and there, 
because I was so artful. The blister was a 
splendid blister. Blisters have saved lives 
ere now. The tingling of it did her good; 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 315 

she must keep it on another minute to make 
the cure complete. 

' Don't be in a hurry/ I answered, warn- 
ingly. * Young ladies must think a bit before 
they make up their minds, because there are 
some occasions when they can't be allowed 
to alter them. Supposing the murderer was 
not repentant, not at all repentant or humble, 
but cross-grained, cursing God and man for 
the sin he had himself committed, don't you 
think it might be more prudent to leave him 
to his fate ? You are a wise young woman 
for your time of life, and you were right 
enough when you said that a young lady 
whose only wealth is her innocence ought to 
look precious sharp after it. My poor friend 
Anderson was a thief, you said, and so very 
properly you turned that pretty, straight 
back of yours on him. A murderer's a pre- 
cious sight worse nor a thief, you know ; and 
my advice to Innocence is to let him be.' 

The blister was biting too hard, and she 
winced under it. Shivering and shaking, for 
all the world as if she had a high fever, she 
struggled up on her feet, and clutched me 
by the arm. 



3i6 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

' You say all this to try me/ she 
murmured, while her tears flowed. ^ My 
father would never commit a crime de- 
liberately. It was an accident. Poor, poor 
father ! How he must have suffered ! Take 
me to him — quick !' 

She had a veil twisted round her cheap 
bonnet, and I drew it down, soft and 
respectful, before we left the cabin; and I 
adjusted her cloak, and made her take my 
arm, she was shaking so. We made our way 
through the piles of luggage and loose ropes, 
and all through the confusion of the deck, 
across a plank to the landing-stage. Then 
I made her hold fast by the old hulk, and 
led her back to the place she came from. 
The young gal didn't seem much surprised at 
that ; for she knew now why Ebenezer had 
spoken so tenderly, and conscience was 
worriting, I daresay, as conscience will. 

It was a dismal afternoon, and a drizzle 
began to fall. Black Jack Alley looked 
more greasy and sludgy, and more vile and 
tumble-down even than usual. What was 
Ebenezer doinsf ? I wondered. Was he at 
home, or gone upon some devil's business 1 



A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. yiy 

We went up the stairs, and in the passage 
I had to hold the young gal up, and I 
grinned and nodded to encourage her. 
The key was in the lock, so he was at 
home ; that was a comfort. Then I opened 
the door with caution, and we looked in. 
There was no fire nor light, but I could 
just detect the outline of Ebenezer's figure 
by the hearth, where he sat with his head 
lying on his arms on the low mantel- shelf. 
The young gal leaned against the door- 
post, with eyes contracted and fluttering 
breath. I gave her hand a squeeze as a 
reminder, and motioned that she ought to 
go to him. Somehow or other she managed 
to totter across the floor, and sank down by 
his side upon her knees. At first he didn't 
know that she was there, till her arms were 
wound around him. Then he started up 
with a great cry, looking as fierce as you 
please, like an animal at bay. 

' What's this ?' he shouted, catching sight 
of me. ' What have you done ? Why have 
you brought her back, when I hojjed never 
to see her more V 

Then, seized with a terror, he recoiled 



3i8 A DIPLOMATIC SEA-DOG. 

from the gal, and shrank right away into 
a dark corner where he was hidden. 

^ What have you done 1' he kept mumbhng. 
^ What have you done % You have betrayed 
your trust.' 

' By God's grace, I have/ I answered. 
^ She knows all.' 

And closing the door softly, I crept 
downstairs on tij)toe, just to take a stroll 
for half an hour; more pleased, ladies and 
gents, let me tell you, than I had been for 
many a year. 



^C. i 




CHAPTER II. 



THE CHIEF WARDER S DECISION. 




STEPPED back again to the 
ship on a little matter of business, 
which I had to arrange ; and 
did not return to Black Jack Alley for an 
hour and a half I don't mind saying that 
I felt uncommon jolly, for I seemed to see 
the angels up aloft looking down on 
Ebenezer as a cantankerous insect that had 
crawled uncommon crooked, but was going 
to walk straight at last. There was little 
doubt in my mind as to that, though I didn't 
know so much as I do now, after reading 
the MSS. That was an awful blow that I 
had to give the gal, a blow with the fist 
between the eyes, delivered with all my 
strength, under which she reeled and stag- 



320 THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 

gered. But she was of good grit, just like 
her father. He was as proud as Lucifer, and 
so was she. They were both stiff-necked and 
stubborn-kneed. Why should not one teach 
the other to be humble ? What was the 
matter with Ebenezer all along, was that 
he felt overwhelmed with a sense of loneli- 
ness. If he'd had anyone to tell it to, he 
would have borne his trial better. From the 
moment that he changed his name till now, 
solitude had been the worm that gnawed his 
vitals without ceasing. For not only had he 
given up his relations, but his private friends 
as well. Do you realise, ladies and gents, 
the position of one who is quite young, and 
has not a single person who knows him on 
the surface of the globe ? Not an acquain- 
tance, not an aged retainer even, or a shop- 
man who bows to him as an old customer. 
He needed what to us mortals is as the 
breath of life — sympathy. When I observed 
that for years and years he never received 
a letter or a visit, I was drawn to the man 
by curiosity, and, not being altogether a fool, 
could detect how his withers were wrung. 
Every prisoner under my charge had a hope 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 321 

of some kind — a home to think of, however 
poor and degraded, even if it was only a 
famihar basket in Covent Garden market — 
a pal Avho would be glad to see him when he 
came out (and a bad lot too, most of those 
pals — but that's neither here nor there). 
With Ebenezer Anderson it wasn't so. His 
character was warped and twisted all awry. 
His nature said, ' Find a pal of some sort — you 
must, for it ain't possible to go on like this, 
devouring your own stummick ;' and the only 
choice that chance and our blessed system gave 
him was between a polished scoundrel, like 
the Reverend Aurelius (cuss him !), and an 
ignorant, good-natured chap, without a sense 
of right or wrong, like Spevins. And it's 
much to his credit, I say, that he chose the 
iofnorant one. 

But by the lucky circumstance of his 
daughter getting into a mess herself, a 
door was opened for his reformation, which 
none would have dreamed of. And when 
Ebenezer told me of it in that pub at 
Wapping, it was as much as I could do 
to prevent myself from saying ' Hooroar !' 
and getting up and capering about the room 

VOL. III. 64 



322 THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 



like a lunatic. That the gal v/ho had that 
mission before her (as Ebenezer would call 
it) could be a bad gal was not possible, or 
she wouldn't have been oiven such a naission. 
The ways of this world are queer, I admit, 
and provoking sometimes, no doubt ; but I 
declined to believe that anythine so tan- 
talising could take place as that the two 
should be brought together from the ends of 
the earth, as it were, for no result to come of 
their meeting. That would have been too 
exasperating — wouldn't it \ Ebenezer was 
too proud to speak — the mark of the prison 
brand smarted too much for that — and the 
gal being of the same flesh and blood, and a 
hoighty-toity bit of goods, as pert and giddy 
young gals will be till they've had something 
to make 'em cry a bit, she took offence and 
turned up her nose at him, and persuaded 
herself that it was mighty virtuous to leave 
the poor lonely man in the lurch, because his 
pals were a trifle quisby. I would not 
believe but that all that was gammon ; and 
not being by any means a fool, you see I was 
right. Well, I'd brought the pair together, 
and a hard job too — I was all of a perspira- 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 3:3 



tion over it, and my shirt was sticking to my 
back — and 1 made up ni}^ mind to return 
presently when they had both had their 
€ry out, and * improve the occasion/ as our 
chaplain says. That Ebenezer had fallen into 
bad hands was clear, and that he was plotting 
something foolish and wicked was clear too. 
But the loving pity of his daughter, and her 
sympathy for his sorrows, must draw him 
out of that. He was not a man to lead his 
own child astrav — nothinof of the kind — 
although many of our convicts will, I^ni 
sorry to say, * like a bird,' as the saying is. 
So I'd just trot back when my little business 
aboard -ship was done, and preach my little 
sermon that they might see plainly how they 
stood, with the unbiassed eyes of a by- 
stander, and then I'd trot away again for 
another spell, and leave the leaven to 
work. 

And so I did. When I got back I was 
too artful to go bouncing in and making 
them ashamed, not such a marplot by a good 
deal. No, I creaked and tumbled down uj^on 
the stairs, and coughed and cleared my 
throat, and made a rasping noise like a 

64—2 



324 THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISIOX. 



chicken with the pip, in order that they 
might be quite prepared, and then gave a 
discreet knock. 

' Come in,' the gal said, and I came in, 
and o'lad I was to see them sittincr on the 
same chair, with all the proud lines gone for 
ever. 

Ebenezer s eyes glistened as he held out 
his hand to me. ' God bless you !' was all 
that he could say ; but there was a lot in it, 
enouofh to make me sniff and look out of the 
window, while I passed my hand across my 
face. But that wouldn't do. I wasn't there 
to snivel ; therefore I clapped him on the 
back, and said as cheerfully as if there were 
no such things as want, and temptation, and 
crime, all round about : 

' You see, old chap, that it's all coming 
rio-ht. It's a lono- lane that has no turnino- 
as the land-lubbers say ; it's a long voyage 
that has no haven, as we said at sea. Your 
voyage has been long and stormy, but you'll 
come to port b3^-and-by. A ten days' trip 
and you will reach the harbour — only ten 
days or so ; that's nothing after twelve years, 
is it ? 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 325 



Ebenezer seemed puzzled, and looked at 
me for an explanation. I blundered about a 
bit — some things are so plaguy difficult to 
say — but after humming and hawing, and 
beating about the bush till I got all of a 
perspiration again, it came out somehow. 

^ That young gal of yours is a-going to sail 
the day after to-morrow for Canada, to settle 
— we've arranged all that, you know ; and 
here's a ticket for yourself It came into my 
head just now, quite accidental-like, to go and 
take it ; for you couldn't let her travel all 
that way by herself, could you ? And when 
you get there you'll want to look about — so 
we'll arrange that little loan I told you of, and 
you'll pay it back by-and-by. Say no more. 
That's taut and ship-shape. Be obedient 1 
You should have learned to obey me by this 
time.' 

Ebenezer's features were working as he 
shaded his eyes with his hand. Now was 
the time for my little sermon. 

'You've been sorely tried, Ebenezer,' I 
began. ' We all know that : we can see how 
sorely by the reflection in your gal's pretty 
face. Because a man or woman falls, that's 



:26 THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISlOxW 

110 reason why they should not get up again. 
It's only a coward who, instead of getting 
up, lies in the mud howling. You're too 
good a sort to lie in the mud howling any 
more — for you have been doing that there, 
I'm sorry to have to tell you so. You've 
howled a jolly sight too much. Come, 
courage, man ! For the sake of that home- 
less gal, if not for your own, you'll give up 
your plans, whatever they may be. Never 
mind your pals, they'll get on well enough 
without you ; and they'll come back to me 
by-and-by in due course, for another bout of 
hair-cropping. Your duty is bound up with 
that gal more than with them ; and if you've 
got to throw any bod}'" overboard, it must 
be them, and not her. You don't dare 
deny it, with her arm round your neck like 
that !' 

He seemed undecided still, and I could 
have hit him with i:)leasure ; but the young gal 
came to the rescue. She kissed his lips, rub- 
bing her cheek against his, and said softly : 

' My father will do your bidding. You 
are our benefactor ; wliat you order he shall 
obey.' 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 327 

'That's hearty,' I cried. 'Didn't I say 
you were a wise young woman ! You shall 
be boss, and pick him out of the mud. As he's 
such a poor grovelling creature that he won't 
pull himself together, you will have to take 
the helm : keep a steady hand on it, and it 
will answer to your touch — never fear.' 

And as she sat blinking and smiling, with 
one arm about her father's neck, I thought it 
only fau' that the surl}^ old turnkey should 
have a kiss too, especially as he wanted to 
talk about a little matter of business that con- 
fused him rather. Everything comes out, you 
know, except murder (which doesn't, as a 
rule, though the proverb says it does), and 
so this came out too ; and there ^vas a little 
more kissing and blushing, and saying, ' Oh 
dear no ; not for the world ;' and 'We couldn't 
think of it by any manner of means,' and so 
forth, and a struggling and more kissing ; and 
then it was arrans^ed to the satisfaction of 
everybody, and of me in particular, that that 
young gal was to be Hhe sole legatee of the 
grumpy old bear who had something put 
away in a stocking — though not very much — 
together with a teapot wrapped in a hand- 



3^8 THE CHIEF IVAJWER \S DECISION. 

kerchief, and a solid watch and chain. But 
we'll say no more about that. 

Well, these important matters being settled, 
we sat sensibly down to talk over pros and 
cons, and how thins^s had best be manaored. 
Lord forgive me ! As a chief-warder I was 
not behaving well, though as a private indi- 
vidual I think I was. Being away on leave, I 
did not look on myself in the light of a chief- 
warder. The vessel was to sail in two days, 
so I agreed that it was not worth while for 
Ebenezer to report himself at Scotland Yard. 
The more we talked the thino- over, the more 
of one mind did we become as to emigration. 
Though Ebenezer was free on licence, he was 
a ticket-of-leave man for the rest of his days ; 
bound to report himself to the police every 
month for the rest of his natural life if he 
elected to reside in England. If the past 
was to be effaced, this thorn must be plucked 
out of his flesh. There was no reason why 
he should not go. His wife, whom he de- 
tested, and who had behaved bad, was 
re-married, and mother of a second family. 
Nothing was to be gained by disturbing that 
household. On the other side of the water 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 329 

Ebenezer would resume the thread of his 
career ; would even sing again in the sun- 
light perhaps in time, with his daughter by 
his side, as he used to do. Those twelve years 
of agony would linger faintly in memory, like 
a bad dream which had never been real. So 
I thought, and so I told him ; and his face 
wore a new look of hope, which was in turn 
reflected on Miss Mildred's. And here was 
another idea to set his mind at ease as to 
the little loan. I threatened by-and-by to go 
and join them across the water. What cause 
should I have for remaining^ in Engfland so 
soon as I had won my pension ? I should 
not be sorry, I can tell you, to turn my face 
from Dartmoor and the weariful opening and 
shutting of locks, and the hairless bullet-pates 
and villainous visages, the blue woollen stock- 
ings and mustard-coloured garments daubed 
with the broad arrow ! Ebenezer and my 
legatee would be in America, so would my 
cousin and her children, the only relations 
that I had in the world. Of course I would 
emigrate too, when I could manage it — say 
iive years hence — and come the chief- warder 
over them in their new home — aye, wouldn't 



330 THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 

I ! — and torment them for years to come ; for^ 
though my hair was grey, my constitution 
was sound and hale, and I come of a long- 
lived family. 

Thus we chatted on far into the nio^ht, till 
the flame of the tallow candle guttered near 
the socket, and the circles round the bonny 
eyes of my legatee grew darker. She was 
worn out with the emotions of the day, and 
yet could not tire of watching her father, 
from whose face the steel-cold expression was 
gone, which had so repelled and frightened 
her. It became my duty, therefore, to exer- 
cise my authority ; so I rattled an imaginary 
bunch of keys, and packed them both off to 
bed, and took my leave, promising to return 
next day. 

Dear heart alive ! I had done a oood 
action, and I was proud to think of it. I 
don't believe in the axiom which says that 
one hand is not to know what t'other does. 
By all means, I say, let the right hand be 
posted up as to what the left is doing ; for 
the left won't do wrono^ if he knows he's 
beino^ Avatched : and if he's doino- rioht he's 
a good example to the other. I had done a 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 



Jj' 



good action, and I saw my reward in the 
shape of a family of m}^ own, all ready made I 
Tiie lonely old bear had given himself a 
clever son and a sweetly pretty grand- 
daughter, vrhom he would love, and who would 
learn to love him — shao^o^y old fellow thouo'h 
he wptS I There was a handsome present I 
and he was sendino; them off out of sis^ht 
for a while to prepare a future home for him^ 
vvhere they would light his fire and warm his 
slippers, and smooth his pillow, and close his 
(.'Id eyes, when his time came, with tender 
touch and o^entle fino^ers. Wasn't that some- 
thing nice to think of? And I did think of 
it, and I blessed God for His great goodness, 
and found myself sobbing like a little child 
myself in the silence of the night for thank- 
fulness, instead of indulging in a good strong 
snore, as sensible men of my age should. 

Well, I went next day to buy a thing or 
two to make my legatee more comfortable 
upon the voj^age, and a thick great-coat for 
Ebenezer; and surprised Black Jack Alley not 
a little by arriving there laden with parcels. 

Ebenezer was better already, I could see^ 
and relieved at being taken in hand. 



332 THE CHIEF WARDER 'S DECISION. 



' The crusfc (the real one this time) around 
my heart is broken/ he said, * which made it 
feel so painful, like a stone. Sometimes I felt 
as if I bad no heart at all. I c ould not see that, 
because I had sinned, I deserved so heavy a 
chastisement. But the change which you com- 
j^leted has been working silently for some time 
past, though I was not aware of it. The meek- 
ness of the unhappy sack-makers, who starve 
in their garrets hereabout, though they have 
•done no wrong, was a riddle to me which T 
could not solve till my Mildred solved it for 
me. Human affairs are ordained in so 
•curious a fashion that we should call it slip- 
slop, if it was not impious. But I see now 
why people are made to suifer so awfully 
here below. It is that the grossness of their 
essence should be refined by human sympathy. 
How beautiful it is to think that one imper- 
fect crippled creature should be enabled to fit 
another for a place aloft through the sheer 
power of his love ! Is it not a distinct re- 
flection from the face of God Himself? 
Thanks to you and her, old friend, through 
Him, I have learned the lesson of patience 
and humility.' 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. -i:,-;, 

I thought that very j)i'etty for a gaol-bird, 
so T wrote it down, and Ebenezer s smile, as 
I did so, had a sweetness that I had never 
seen before. I was just whispering about 
it to my fair-haired young legatee, when all 
of a sudden there was a great clatter down 
below, which recalled us to the present. 
Somebody was rushing up the stairs, singing 
in a voice that I couldn't help thinking I 
knew ; then the door was banged open by a 
kick, and a flash young man stood grinning 
on the threshold. 

It was Spevins — D 48 — gorgeously got 
up with a flapping scarlet necktie, and 
behind him L R Y 233, the only man whom 
I hate on earth (except perhaps Tilgoe). 

' How are yer, my noble capting V sang 
Spevins ; ' and my pretty young Duchess of 
Mayfair, how are you ?' Then his song died 
away as he caught sight of me, like the tune 
of an organ when the bellows stops working. 
■ The eyes of the burglar goggled in hi& 
head with astonishment, while Jaggs, wha 
\vas looking over his shoulder, ejaculated un- 
consciousl}^, * My uncle I' 

Now that, as you [know, always did drive 



334 THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 

mc wild. I respect my name because my 
parents were honest people, if poor — and so 
were theirs before them, and so was I, 
always — and it did rise my dander when that 
rascally scamp dared to take it in vain. I'm 
not spiteful, I hope, but I never could bear 
imperence, and liberties I never could put 
up with, and certainly not from convicts. 
So I flew in a tantrum, I regret to say, 
before the eyes of my legatee, who had called 
me her benefactor, and, getting red-hot, 
bawled out : 

' You owdacious varmint ! clear away from 
this ! You've no business here ; be off, or 
you'll have a marline-spike about yer ribs !' 

But, somehow or another, Jaofo^s wasn't as 
frio^htened as I could have wished. Whether 
it was his own fine clothes, or his kid gloves, 
or the fact that I was out of uniform, beino* 
on leave, I can't say. Anyway, he stared at 
me, and grinned as bold as brass, till my fists 
itched to pummel him. Spevins turned a 
trifle serious, and ran those beady eyes of his 
from one to another suspiciously, as though he 
smelt a rat. After a pause, Ebenezer spoke. 

' I have bad news for you,' he said in a 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 335 



quiet way that was lovely. ^ Urgecl by con- 
siderations which are new to me, I have 
resolved to leave the country with my 
daughter here. I start from Ens^land to- 
morrow, never to return. I'm afraid you 
must give up your project. As for me, I 
abandon my part in it. 

* A sneak !' cried Jaggs, in a fury. ' What 
else could you expect fro in a gentleman lag ? 
I told you long ago, Bill, that they are a shy 
lot who ain't got no hoaour.' 

Spevins, too, looked savage and disap- 
pointed, and eyed me threateningly, as if he'd 
like to give me something when my head was 
turned ; and his brow remained sullen as 
Ebenezer continued : 

'Not so ! I have said nothing. Mr. 
Scarraweg is ignorant of your plans, and will 
be for some months to come ; and he will not 
betray you then, if you let the project drop. 
If you do not, you must abide the conse- 
quences.' 

I groaned in my inside. Was I to be 
driven to connive with these blacko-uards % 
Talk of compounding a felony, indeed ! and I 
a chief-warder of her Majesty's convict 



336 THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 

prison ! But it didn't signify ; for whether 
it was tliis project or another, they were safe 
to come back to the fold asfain. Thaak 
ofoodness ! those lavender trousers of Jac^ors's 
would soon be confiscated to the state, and he 
would return to claim a bedroom in the 
Hotel ! When I looked at those loud la- 
vender trousers and patent-leather shoes, I 
confess I didn't feel as Christian as I could 
wish. It was just like the heartless 
scoundrel, to come flaunting his fine feathers 
under the noses of the sack-makers around us, 
who had nothing to cover their nakedness or 
to fill their empty stomachs ! 

Well ! I might, perhaps, have to connive 
at somethinof, but I was not ofoinof to connive 
at the presence of these rascals in the same 
room with my legatee. So I motioned them 
to the stairs (they had not come a foot within 
the doorway), and said, sternly : 

' Harkee, my men ! you ought to know by 
this time that I'm not to be trifled with. So 
be off at once, and don't show your ugly mugs 
in the neighbourhood till this man has sailed. 
He is under heavy obligations to me, and 
from this moment is my son. If you don't 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 337 

be off without another word I'll insist upon 
his telhng me what your plans are, and de- 
nounce you. He was going to tell me the 
other day in confidence, but I wouldn't listen ; 
for I don't care about playing the spy 
unless you force me to it. Come ! one — 
two — -three off !' 

Jaggs's lantern visage wore a malignant 
scowl, as he muttered : 

' Going away '? It's well the sneak should 
keep his barrow off my track !' 

Spevins, on the other hand, recovered his 
surprise by and bye. His face cleared after 
a minute, and he shrugged his shoulders. 

^ Just like my luck!' he said, addressing 
the company with a doleful laugh. ' The 
odds were aofin me even while fortun seemed 
to smile. The odds are agin me now, as 
they all'ys was, and all'ys will be. Bat 
'tain't my fault. I am unfortnit, and no 
mistake !' 

And with that the pair departed. 

When their footsteps had ceased to echo, 
we tried to take up the thread of our dis- 
course again ; but Miss Mildred sighed and 
could not regain her spirits. Whether she 

VOL. III. 65 



338 THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 

was horrified at the sight of the low fellows 
who had been her father's chosen comrades, 
or whether, seeing Jaggs's hang-dog looks, 
she feared lest he might revenge himself upon 
him, I know not ; but I do know she counted 
the minutes which stood between her and 
the new life, and that the operation being 
contagious, I followed suit. 

There was little more to settle, but being 
all a little afraid of our thoughts, we dis- 
cussed each question over and over. We 
were to write to each other very often ; 
that was understood. I was to join them 
as soon as I was able. There is something 
solemn about looking upon Motherland for 
the last time, even though she's been no 
better than a step- mother. We all felt it, 
and talked in subdued voices as if Death was 
in the house. Ebenezer was anxious that his 
wife should some day know the truth. 

^ She mio^ht be softened and become a 
better woman,' he said, ' if she knew the 
story of her first husband's trials. She would 
learn at the same time that thoug^h alive she 
would never see him, and that the child 
whom she had maltreated had been miracu- 



THE CHIEF WARDER 'S DECISION. 339 

lously thrown by a decree of Heaven in the 
way of him who was dearest to her on earth. 
This might save her from remorse some day.' 

To that end he would write his history, he 
declared, and send it to me, sheet by sheet, as 
it was written, in order that it might be pub- 
lished. People would read it and be sorry 
for the victim of a moment's madness, and 
perhaps bestir themselves to achieve some- 
thing for the help of those prostrate ones 
who cannot rise without a helping hand. 
One only would guess the name that was 
suppressed, and the sad tale might induce her 
to look inward. 

The idea was good, and I encouraged him 
to carry it out ; disgusted as I am at the 
way in which you, ladies and gents, bid 
people to reform themselves, and, in practice, 
prevent their reformation. But w^e've had 
all that out before, so there's no use in 
another tantrum, is there ? Well, I've 
written more since I took up this affair of 
his, than I ever did in all my life. I hope 
you'll like the yarn, and turn your serious 
attention to the condition of the poor pri- 
soners WHEN THEY COME OUT OF PRISON. It'll 

65-2 



340 THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 

take you all your time. Never mind those 
luho are inside. Though our armour ain't 
altogether without holes, we're quite 
capable of looking after them ; more capable 
than you, I daresay, for all your palaver ; 
than you, who are inclined to be indulgent 
to the extent of an ounce or two of skilly, or 
an extra yard of flannel. We are quite 
capable of measuring out the skilly by our 
own experience. Trust us, that's all. 
- Well, really I have done at last ; no I 
haven't, thoug^h. Over across the water, 
Ebenezer's taken to his brushes again. For 
two pins I'll give him a commission to paint 
that there picture of the angels rejoicing 
over the sinner that repenteth. Why, here's 
the post come in with the usual letter from 
my legatee ! Bless her dear heart and eyes ! 
What an affectionate girl, aud what a good 
correspondent I She says : 

' Though the mark of the wound may 
never disappear, it is healed and cicatrised. 
Papa is unrecognisable. Even you would 
not know him, you kind old grump, although 
you think yourself so artful. Under fresh 
auspices, in this New Land of Promise, 



THE CHIEF WARDER'S DECISION. 341 

he has assumed another identity — a third, re- 
sembhng the first — the same, and yet another. 
No longer irascible, impulsive, impetuous ; or 
sullen, vindictive, and morose ; he has sat 
down with thankfulness to enjoy the glow of 
Autumn — humbled, chastened, matured, but 
not unhappy — with a calm content, veiled by 
a film of sadness.' 




L'ENYOI. 



^iwrt^ HAVE had the honour to present to the 
43 (§\^ public six typical convicts, with a hope that 
G\i^f^| the newly-introduced will have liked each 
'.other. 

With one exception they are all real individuals, and 
are at this minute grumbling over their allotted tasks 
in fustian knickerbockers and gaiters, with cropped 
pates and bristly chins, within the gloomy walls of one 
or other of our penal establishments. 

For the purposes of fiction, I have of course been 
compelled to prune here a twig and there a branch, 
and have grafted on their story events which occurred 
to other prisoners. But in all save small details, there 
they are, and may be looked upon any day by those 
who care to verify the portraits (with the key of their 
badge-numbers from me), through the medium of an 
order from the Secretary of State. 

As regards officials, it is, for obvious reasons, other- 
wise. That excellent person Mr. E , chief- warder 

at Dartmoor, will not, I am sure, suppose for a mo- 



L ' ENVOI. 343 

ment that my Mr. Scarraweg is intended for a carica- 
ture of him ; neither will the present governor of that 
prison find his counterpart in my ' dapper-martinet.' 
As it happens, there was no governor at all there during 
the time of my residence at Princetown ; one having 
recently been promoted, wdiile his successor had not 
yet arrived. 

But at the same time, I am not quite prepared to 
affirm that my prison-officials are entirely fictitious. 
Mr. Scarraweg does exist, but not at Dartmoor. The 
members of the service will probably seem to detect 
here and there a well-known trait; and should they 
do so, I feel assured that they will, at the same time, 
perceive that such traits have been dotted down in 
the spirit of harmless banter, and that I have taken 
the greatest possible care to wound the feelings or 
susceptibilities of none of those gentlemen who were 
so uniformly courteous to a wanderer ; and whom I 
have to thank, one and all, for many hours of genial 
hospitality. 

I have tried, by means of parable and exhortation, 
to point out sundry defects in certain branches of the 
penal system ; as well as one or two serious blemishes 
with reference to other matters — notably, with regard 
to the probably well-meaning, but certainly abortive, 
-action of the Prisoners' Aid Societies, and the out- 
rageous treatment of military prisoners (see vol. ii., 
pages 318 — 324). If I can succeed in drawing public 
attention to these things, my mission Avill be accom- 
plished, my guerdon earned ; for the public (when its 
attention has been once aroused) is just, and intolerant 



344 L' ENVOI. 

of abuse, and these cobwebs need only the irruption 
of a ray of daylight to promptly feel the broom. 

People profess, in an airy and picturesque manner, 
to adore Virtue. Here is an opportunity for putting 
theory into practice. 

If some who happen to have toasted their toes over 
this novel in their cosy nests (be they Catholic or 
Protestant, or Mahometan, or Jews), chance to recall 
the dictum which propoundeth the theory that ' the 
greatest of these is Charity' — why, Father Cooke of 
the Eoman Catholic Mission House, at Tower Hill, 
will be only too thankful to acknowledge timely help; 
and he will also be prepared to show — only too abun- 
dantly — that my sketch of the Irish sackmakers of 
his district is in nowise exaggerated or overdrawn. 
Would that it were ! 

I take this opportunity of thanking the Press — 
always with one exception — for their kindly reception 
of my last book. 

LEWIS WINGFIELD. 
May, 1880. 



THE END. 



BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, GUILDFORD. 

S. <Ss H. 



yy